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THE TAMING OF PEGASUS. 



YOUNG FOLKS* HISTORY 



OF 



GREECE 



BY 

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, 

Author of "The Heir of Kedclyffe," "Little Lucy's 

Wonderful Globe," " Book of Golden Deeds," 

"Young Folks' History of Germany," 

"Kome," "England," "France." 



^/^G/^^KD^nj 



CINCINNATI: 
HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

NEW YORK: 

NELSON & PHILLIPS. 

1878. 









COPYRIGHT BY 

D. LOTHROP & CO. 
1878. 

By Eichr 
Army Am 




PREFACE. 



TN this book the attempt has been to trace Greek 
■*■ History so as to be intelligible to children. 
In fact, it will generally be found that classical his- 
tory is remembered at an earlier age than modern 
history, probably because the events are simple, 
and there was something childlike in the nature of 
all the ancient Greeks. I would begin a child's 
reading with the History of England, as that which 
requires to be known best ; but from this I should 
think it better to pass to the History of Greece, and 
that of Rome, both because of their giving some idea 
of the course of time, and bringing Scripture history 
into connection with that of the world, and because 

v. 



vi. Preface. 

little boys ought not to begin their classical studies 
without some idea of their bearing. I have begun 
with a few of the Greek myths, which are abso- 
lutely necessary to the understanding of both the 
history and of art. As to the names, the ordinary 
reading of them has been most frequently adopted, 
and the common Latin titles of the gods and god- 
desses have been used, because these, by long use, 
have really come to be their English names, and 
English literature at least will be better understood 
by calling the king of Olympus Jupiter, than by 
becoming familiar with him first as Zeus. 

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter. Page. 

i. — Olympus 13 

2. — Light and Dark 21 

3. — The Peopling of Greece' 29 

4. — The Hero Perseus 38 

5. — The Labors of Hercules 46 

6. — The Argonauts 58 

7. — The Success of the Argonauts . ... 68 

8. — The Choice of Paris 81 

9. — The Siege of Troy 90 

10. — The Wanderings of Ulysses 101 

11. — The Doom of the Atrides 114 

12. — After the Heroic Age . . . . . . .123 

13. — Lycurgus and the Laws of Sparta, b. c. 

884—668 135 

14. — Solon and the Laws of Athens, b.c. 594 — 

546 144 

vii. 



viii. Contents, 

15. — plsistratus and hi? sons. b.c. 558 499 . 155 

16. — The Battle of Marathon, b.c. 490. . . 164 

17. — The Expedition of Xerxes, b.c* 480 . .175 

18. — The Battle of Plat^ea. b.c. 479—460 . 187 

19. — The Age of Pericles, b.c. 464 — 429 . .196 

20. — The Expedition to Sicily, b.c. 415 — 413. 205 

21. — The Shore of the Goat's River, b.c. 406 

— 402 214 

22. — The Retreat of the Ten Thousand, b.c. 

402 — 399 222 

23.— The Death of Socrates, b.c. 399 . . . 232 

24. — The Supremacy of Sparta, b.c. 396 . . 242 

25. — The Two Theban Friends, b.c. 387 — 362. 250 

26.— Philip of Macedon. b.c. 364 ..... 260 

27. — The Youth of Alexander, b.c. 356 — 334. 270 

28. — The Expedition to Persia, b.c. 334 . . 279 

29. — Alexander's Eastern Conquests, b.c. 331 

— 328 292 

30. — The End oe Alexander, b.c. 328 . . . 305 

31. — The Last Struggles of Athens, b.c. 334 

— 3 11 ■ 3 1 3 

32. — The Four New Kingdoms, b.c. 311 — 287 .320 
^. — Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. b.c. 287 . . . 330 
34. — Aratus and the Achaian League, b.c. 267. ^8 
35. — Agis and the Revival of Sparta, b.c. 244 

—236 345 



Contents. ix. 

36. — Cleomenes and the Fall of Sparta, b.c. 

236—222 353 

37. — Philopcemen, the Last of the Greeks. 

b.c. 236 — 184 361 

38. — The Fall of Greece, b.c. 189 — 146 . . 368 

39. — The Gospel in Greece, b.c. 146 — a.d. 60. 375 

40.— -Under the Roman Empire . ... . 383 

41. — The Frank Conquest. 1201 — 1446 . . . 390 

42. — The Turkish Conquest. 1453 — 1670 . 398 

43. — The Venetian Conquest and Loss. 1684 — 

1796 408 

44. — The War of Independence. 18 15 . . .415 

45. — The Kingdom of Greece. 1822 — 1875 • 4 2 3 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Taming of Pegasus 




Frontispiece. 








Page. 


Mount Olympus . 






• 13 


Head of Jupiter 










16 


Head of Pallas 










24 


Pandora .... 










30 


Mars and Victory 










37 


The Choice of Hercules 










47 


Hercules and the Lion 










50 


Hercules and the Hydra 










51 


Theseus and the Minotaur 










61 


The Golden Fleece Won 










69 


Greek Ship 










87 


Hector and Andromache 










9 1 


The Laocoon 










• 99 


Ulysses Tied to the Mast 










. 107 


Ulysses Bends his Bow 










. 109 


Diagoras and his Sons 










127 


Greek Interior 










• 13° 


Greek Robe 










• "3 1 


Male Costume 










. 132 


A Funeral Feast 










• i34 


Croesus before Cyrus . 


. 








• i53 



Aristides and the Countryma 


n 








A.1. 
171 


Pass of Thermopylae . . ■ . 








179 


Ephialtes Landing the Persians . 








l8l 


Persian Soldier . 








188 


The Academic Grove, Athens 








206 


The Zab among the Mountains 








22S 


Socrates .... 








233 


Plato 








237 


The Death of Socrates 








239 


The Death of Epaminondas 








257 


Demosthenes and the Cup of Gol( 


i . 






267 


Diana of Ephesus 








. 271 


Alexander . 












276 


Alexander the Great . 












280 


Tyre . 












. 28S 


Gaza . 












287 


Jerusalem 












289 


Temple of Ammon 












• 293 


Ruins of Egypt . 












295 


Princes of Persia 












298 


Sepulchers of the Kings 










. 30T 


Timoleon and Timophanes . 










321 


Macedonian Soldier 










32S 


Alexandria . 










. 328 


Agis . 












• 346 


The Forum at Rome 












• 384 


Mount Helicon . 












• 39 6 


Constantinople 












• 399 


Antioch 












. 406 




MOUNT OLYMPUS. 



YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF GREECE. 



-«♦♦- 



CHAPTER I, 



OLYMPUS. 



I AM going to tell you the history of the most 
wonderful people who ever lived. But I have 
to begin with a good deal that is not true ; for the 
people who descended from Japhet's son Javan, 

and lived in the beautiful islands and peninsulas 
13 



14 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

called Greece, were not trained in the knowl- 
edge of God like the Israelites, but had to guess for 
themselves. They made strange stories, partly 
from the old beliefs they brought from the east, 
partly from their ways of speaking of the powers 
of nature — sky, sun, moon, stars, and clouds — as 
if they were real beings, and so again of good or 
bad qualities as beings also, and partly from old 
stories about their forefathers. These stories got 
mixed up with their belief, and came to be part of 
their religion and history ; and they wrote beautiful 
poems about them, and made such lovely statues in 
their honor, that nobody can understand anything 
about art or learning who has not learnt these 
stories. I must begin with trying to tell you a few 
of them. 

In the first place, the Greeks thought there were 
twelve greater gods and goddesses who lived in 
Olympus. There is really a mountain called Olym- 
pus, and those who lived far from it thought it 
went up into the sky, and that the gods really 
dwelt on the top of it. Those who lived near, and 
knew they did not, thought they lived in the sky. 

But the chief of all, the father of gods and men, 
was the sky-god — -'Zeus, as the Greeks called him, 
or Jupiter, as he was called in Latin. However, 



Olympus. 15 

as all things are born of Time, so the sky or Jupiter 
was said to have a father, Time, whose Greek name 
was Kronos. His other name was Saturn ; and as 
Time devours his offspring, so Saturn was said to 
have had the bad habit of eating up his children as 
fast as they were born, till at last his wife Rhea con- 
trived to give him a stone in swaddling clothes, and 
while he was biting this hard morsel, Jupiter was 
saved from him, and afterwards two other sons, Nep- 
tune (PoseidSn) and Pluto (Hades), who became 
lords of the ocean and of the world of the spirits of 
the dead ; for on the sea and on death Time's tooth 
has no power. However, Saturn's reign was thought 
to have been a very peaceful and happy one. For 
as people always think of the days of Paradise, and 
believe that the days of old were better than their 
own times, so the Greeks thought there had been 
four ages — the Golden age, the Silver age, the 
Brazen age, and the Iron age — and that people 
had been getting worse in each of them. Poor old 
Saturn, after the Silver age, had to go into retire- 
ment, with only his own star, the planet Saturn, 
left to him ; and Jupiter was reigning now, on his 
throne on Olympus, at the head of the twelve 
greater gods and goddesses, and it was the Iron 
age down below. His star, the planet we still call 



16 



Young Folks* History of Greece. 



by his name, was much larger and brighter than 
Saturn. Jupiter was always thought of by the 
Greeks as a majestic-looking man in his full strength, 
with thick hair and beard, and with lightnings in 
his hand and an eagle by his side. These lightnings 




HEAD OF JUPITER. 



or thunderbolts were forged by his crooked son 
Vulcan (Hepl^sestion), the god of fire, the smith 
and armorer ot\01ympus, whose smithies were in 
the volcanoes (s\ called from his name), and 



Olympus. 17 

whose workmen were the Cyclops or Round Eyes 
— giants, each with one eye in the middle of his 
forehead. Once, indeed, Jupiter had needed his 
bolts, for the Titans, a horrible race of monstrous 
giants, of whom the worst was Briareus, who had a 
hundred hands, had tried, by piling up mountains 
one upon the other, to scale heaven and throw him 
down; but when Jupiter was hardest pressed, a 
dreadful pain in his head caused him to bid Vulcan 
to strike it with his hammer. Then out darted 
Heavenly Wisdom, his beautiful daughter Pallas 
Athene or Minerva, fully armed, with piercing, 
shining eyes, and by her counsels he cast down the 
Titans, and heaped their own mountains, Etna and 
Ossa and Pelion, on them to keep them down ; and 
whenever there was an earthquake, it was thought 
to be caused by one of these giants struggling to 
get free, though perhaps there was some remem- 
brance of the tower of Babel in the story. Pallas, 
this glorious daughter of Jupiter, was wise, brave, 
and strong, and she was also the goddess of 
women's works — of all spinning, weaving, and 
sewing. 

Jupiter's wife, the queen of heaven or the air, 
was Juno — in Greek, Hera — the white-armed, ox- 
eyed, stately lady, whose bird was the peacock. 



18 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Do you know how the peacock got the eyes in his 
tail ? They once belonged to Argus, a shepherd 
with a hundred eyes, whom Juno had set to watch 
a cow named Io, who was really a lady, much 
hated by her. Argus watched till Mercury (Her- 
mes) came and lulled him to sleep with soft music, 
and then drove Io away. Juno was so angry, that 
she caused all the eyes to be taken from Argus and 
put into her peacock's tail. 

Mercury has a planet called after him too, a very 
small one, so close to the sun that we only see it 
just after sunset or before sunrise. I believe Mer- 
cury or Hermes really meant the morning breeze. 
The story went that he was born early in the 
morning in a cave, and after he had slept a little 
while in his cradle, he came forth, and finding the 
shell of a tortoise with some strings of the inwards 
stretched across it, he at once began to play on it, 
and thus formed the first lyre. He was so swift 
that he was the messenger of Jupiter, and he is al- 
ways represented with wings on his cap and san- 
dals ; but as the wind not only makes music, but 
blows things away unawares, so Mercury came to 
be viewed not only as the god of fair speech, but 
as a terrible thief, and the god of thieves. You 
see, as long as these Greek stories are parables, 



Olympus, 19 

they are grand and beautiful ; but when the beings 
are looked on as like men, they are absurd and 
often horrid. The gods had another messenger, 
Iris, the rainbow, who always carried messages of 
mercy, a recollection of the bow in the clouds ; but 
she chiefly belonged to Juno. 

All the twelve greater gods had palaces on 
Olympus, and met every day in Jupiter's hall to 
feast on ambrosia, a sort of food of life which made 
them immortal. . Their drink was nectar, which 
was poured into their golden cups at first by Vul- 
can, but he stumbled and hobbled so with his lame 
leg that they chose instead the fresh and graceful 
Hebe, the goddess of youth, till she was careless, 
and one day fell down, cup and nectar and all. 
The gods thought they must find another cup- 
bearer, and looking clown, they saw a beautiful 
youth named Ganymede watching his flocks upon 
Mount Ida. So they sent Jupiter's eagle down to 
fly away with him and bring him up to Olympus. 
The}^ gave him some ambrosia to make him immor- 
tal, and established him as their cupbearer. Be- 
sides this, the gods were thought to feed on the 
smoke and smell of the sacrifices people offered up 
to them on earth, and always to. help those who 
offered them most sacrifices of animals and incense. 



20 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

The usual names of these twelve were — Jupiter, 
Neptune, Juno, Latona, Apollo, Diana, Pallas, 
Venus, Vulcan, Mercury, Vesta, and Ceres ; but 
there were multitudes besides — " gods many and 
lords many" of all sorts of different dignities. 
Every river had its god, every mountain and wood 
was full of nymphs, and there was a great god of 
all nature called Pan, which in Greek means All. 
Neptune was only a visitor in Olympus, though he 
had a right there. His kingdom was the sea, 
which he ruled with his trident, and where he had 
a whole world of lesser gods and nymphs, tritons 
and sea horses, to attend upon his chariot. 

And the quietest and best of all the goddesses 
was Vesta, the goddess of the household hearth — 
of home, that is to say. There are no stories to be 
told about her, but a fire was always kept burning 
in her honor in each city, and no one might tend it 
who was not good and pure. 



CHAPTER IT. 



LIGHT AND DARK. 



r*HE god and goddess of light were the glorious 

-*- twin brother and sister, Phoebus Apollo and 

Diana or Artemis. They were born in the isle of 

Delos, which was caused to rise out of the sea to 

save their mother, Latona, from the horrid serpent, 

Python, who wanted to devour her. Gods were 

born strong and mighty ; and the first thing Apollo 

did was to slay the serpent at Delphi with his 

arrows. Here was a dim remembrance of the 

promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise 

the serpent's head, and also a thought of the way 

Light slays the dragon of darkness with his beams. 

Apollo was lord of the day, and Diana queen of 

the night. They were as bright and pure as the 

thought of man could make them, and always 

young. The beams or rays were their arrows, 
21 



22 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

and so Diana was a huntress, always in the woods 
with her nymphs ; and she was so modest, that 
once, when an unfortunate wanderer, named Ac- 
tseon, came on her with her nymphs by chance 
when they were bathing in a stream, she splashed 
some water in his face and turned him into a stag, 
so that his own dogs gave chase to him and killed 
him. I am afraid Apollo and Diana were rather 
cruel ; but the darting rays of the sun and moon 
kill sometimes as well as bless ; and so they were 
the senders of all sharp, sudden strokes. There 
was a queen called Niobe, who had six sons and 
daughters so bright and fair that she boasted that 
they were equal to Apollo and Diana, which 
made Latona so angry, that she sent her son and 
daughter to slay them all with their darts. The 
unhappy Niobe, thus punished for her impiety, 
wept a river of tears till she was turned into stone. 
The moon belonged to Diana, and was her car ; 
the sun, in like manner, to Apollo, though he did 
not drive the car himself, but Helios, the sun-god, 
did. The world was thought to be a flat plate, 
with Delphi in the middle, and the ocean all round. 
In the far east the lady dawn, Aurora, or Eds, 
opened the gates with her rosy fingers, and out 
came the golden car of the sun, with glorious white 



Light and Dark. 23 

horses driven by Helios, attended by the Hours 
strewing dew and flowers. It passed over the arch 
of the heavens to the ocean again on the west, and 
there Aurora met it again in fair colors, took out 
the horses and let them feed. Aurora had married 
a man named Tithonus. She gave him ambrosia, 
which made him immortal, but she could not keep 
him from growing old, so he became smaller and 
smaller, till he dwindled into a grasshopper, and at 
last only his voice was to be heard chirping at sun- 
rise and sunset. 

Helios had an earthly wife too, and a son named 
Phaeton, who once begged to be allowed to drive 
the chariot of the sun for just one day. Helios 
yielded; but poor Phaeton had no strength nor 
skill to guide the horses in the right curve. At 
one moment they rushed to the earth and scorched 
the trees, at another they flew up to heaven and 
would have burnt Olympus, if Jupiter had not cast 
his thunderbolts at the rash driver and hurled him 
down into a river, where he was drowned. His 
sisters wept till they were changed into poplar 
trees, and their tears hardened into amber drops. 

Mercury gave his lyre to Apollo, who was the 
true god of music and poetry, and under him were 
nine nymphs — the Muses, daughters of memory 



24 



Young Folks' History of Greece 



— who dwelt on Mount Parnassus, and were 
thought to inspire all noble and heroic song, all 
poems in praise to or of the gods or of brave men, 
and the graceful music and dancing at their feasts, 
also the knowledge of the stars of earth and heaven. 

These three — Apollo, 
Diana, and Pallas — - 
were the gods of all 
that was nobly, purely, 
and wisely lovely ; but 
the Greeks also be- 
lieved in powers of ill, 
and there was a god- 
dess of beauty, called 
Venus (Aphrodite) . 
Such beauty was hers 
as is the mere prettiness 
and charm of pleasure 
— nothing high or fine. 
She was said to have 
risen out of the sea, as 
the sunshine touched the waves, with her golden 
hair dripping with the spray ; and her favorite home 
was in myrtle groves, where she drove her car, 
drawn by doves, attended by the three Graces, and 
by multitudes of little winged children, called 




HEAD OF PALLAS. 



Light and Dark. 25 

Loves; but there was generally said to be one 
special son of hers, called Love — Cupid in Latin, 
Eros in Greek — whose arrows when tipped with 
gold, made people fall in love, and when tipped 
with lead, made them hate one another. Her 
husband was the ugly, crooked smith, Vulcan — 
perhaps because pretty ornaments come of the hard 
work of the smith ; but she never behaved well to 
him, and only coaxed him when she wanted some- 
thing that his clever hands could make. ' 

She was much more fond of amusing herself with 
Mars (Ares), the god of war, another of the evil 
gods, for he was fierce, cruel, and violent, and 
where he went slaughter and blood were sure* to 
follow him and his horrid daughter Bellona. His 
star was " the red planet Mars ; " but Venus had 
the beautiful clear one, which, according as it is 
seen either at sunrise or sunset, is called the morn- 
ing or evening star. Venus also loved a beautiful 
young earthly youth, called Adonis, who died of a 
thrust from a wild boar's tusk, while his blood 
stained crimson the pretty flower, pheasant's eye, 
which is still called Adonis. Venus was so 
wretched that she persuaded Jupiter to decree 
that Adonis should come back and live for one-half 
of the year, but he was to go down to Pluto's 



26 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

underground kingdom the other half. This is be- 
cause plants and flowers are beautiful for one year, 
die down, and rise again. 

But there is a much prettier story,' with some- 
thing of the same meaning, about Ceres (Demeter), 
the grave, motherly goddess of corn and all the 
fruits of the earth. She had one fair daughter, 
named Proserpine (Persephone), who was playing 
with her companions near Mount Etna, gathering 
flowers in the meadows, when grim old Pluto 
pounced upon her and carried her off into his under- 
ground world to be his bride. Poor Ceres did not 
know what had become of her darling, and wan- 
dered up and down the world seeking for her, tast- 
ing no food or drink, till at last, quite spent, she 
was taken in as a poor woman by Celeus, king of 
Eleusis, and became nurse to his infant child Trip- 
tolemus. All Eleusis was made rich with corn, 
while no rain fell and no crops grew on the rest of 
the earth ; and though first Iris and then all the 
gods came to beg Ceres to relent, she would grant 
nothing unless she had her daughter back. So 
Jupiter sent Mercury to bring Proserpine home ; 
but she was only to be allowed to stay on earth on 
condition that she had eaten nothing Avhile in the 
under world. Pluto knowing this made her eat 



Light and Dark. 27 

half a pomegranate, ana so she could not stay with 
her mother ; but Ceres's tears prevailed so far that 
she was to spend the summer above ground and the 
winter below. For she really was the flowers and 
fruit. Ceres had grown so fond of little Triptole- 
mus that she wanted to make him immortal ; but as 
she had no ambrosia, this could only be done by 
putting him on the fire night after night to burn 
away his mortal part. His mother looked in one 
night during the operation, and shrieked so that 
she prevented it ; so all Ceres could do for him was 
to give him grains of wheat and a dragon car, with 
which he traveled all about the world, teaching 
men to sow corn and reap harvests. 

Proserpine seems to have been contented in her 
underground kingdom, where she ruled with Pluto. 
It was supposed to be below the volcanic grounds 
in southern Italy, near Lake Avernus. The en- 
trance to it was guarded by a three-headed clog, 
named Cerberus, and the way to it was barred by 
the River Styx. Every evening Mercury brought 
all the spirits of the people who had died .during 
the day to the shore of the Styx, and if their funeral 
rites had been properly performed, and they had a 
little coin on the tongue to pay the fare, Charon, 
the ferryman, took them across $ but if their corpses 



28 Young Folks' History of Grreeee. 

were in the sea, or on battle-fields, unburied, the 
poor shades had to flit about vainly begging to be 
ferried over. After they had crossed, they were 
judged by three judges, and if they had been 
wicked, were sent over the river of fire to be tor- 
mented by the three Furies, Alecto, Megara, and 
Tisiphone. who had snakes as scourges and in their 
hair. If they had been brave and virtuous, they 
were allowed to live among beautiful trees and 
flowers in the Elysian fields, where Pluto reigned ; 
but they seem always to have longed after the life 
they had lost ; and these Greek notions of bliss seem 
sad beside what we know to be the truth. Here, 
too, lived the three Fates, always spinning the 
threads of men's lives; Clotho held the distaff, 
Lachesis drew out the thread, and Atropos with her 
shears cut it off when the man was to die. And, 
though Jupiter was mighty, nothing could happen 
but by Fate, which was stronger than he. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PEOPLING OF GREECE. 

YOU remember the Titans who rebelled against 
Jupiter. There was one who was noble, 
and wise, and kind, who did not rebel, and kept 
his brother from doing so. His name was Prome- 
theus, which means Forethought ; his brother's was 
Epimetheus, Afterthought ; their father was Iape- 
tus. When all the other Titans had been buried 
Under the rocks, Jupiter bade Prometheus mould 
men out of the mud, and call on the winds of 
heaven to breathe life into them. Then Prome- 
theus loved the beings he had made, and taught 
them to build houses, and tame the. animals, and 
row and sail on the sea, and study the stars. But 
Zeus was afraid they would be too mighty, and 

would not give them fire. Then Prometheus 
29 



30 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



climbed the skies, and brought fire down for them 
in a hollow reed. 

The gods were jealous, and thought it time to 
stop this. So Jupiter bade Vulcan mould a woman 
out of clay, and Pallas to adorn her with all charms 
and gifts, so that she was called Pandora, or All 
Gifts ; and they gave her a casket, into which they 
put all pains, and griefs, and woes, and ills, and 
nothing good in it but hope ; and they sent her 
down to visit the two Titan brothers. Prometheus 
knew that Jupiter hated them, and lie had warned 

Epimetheus not to take any 
gifts that came from Olym- 
pus ; but he was gone from 
home when Pandora came ; 
and when Epimetheus saw 
hoAV lovely she was, and 
heard her sweet voice, he 
was won over to trust her, 
and to open the box. Then 
out flew all the evils and 
miseries that were stored in 
it, and began to torment 
poor mankind with war, and sickness, and thirst, 
and hunger, and nothing good was left but hope at 
the bottom of the box. And by-and-by there came 




The Peopling of Greece. 31 

spirits, called Prayers, but they* were iame, coming 
after evil, because people are so apt not to begin 
to pray till harm has befallen them. 

The gocls undertook also to accept sacrifices, 
claiming a share in whatever animal man slew. 
Prometheus guarded his people here by putting the 
flesh of a bullock on one side, and the bones and 
inward parts covered with the fat on the other, and 
bidding Jupiter choose which should be his. The 
fat looked as if the heap it covered were the best, 
and Jupiter chose that, and was forced to abide by 
his choice ; so that, whenever a beast was killed 
for food, the bones and fat were burnt on the altar, 
and man had the flesh. All this made Jupiter so 
angry, that, as Prometheus was immortal and could 
not be killed, he chained the great, good Titan to 
a rock on Mount Caucasus, and sent an eagle con- 
tinually to rend his side and tear out his liver as 
fast as it grew again ; but Prometheus, in all his 
agony, kept hope, for he knew that deliverance 
would come to him ; and, in the meantime, he was 
still the comforter and counselor of all who found 
their way to him. 

Men grew very wicked, owing to the evils in 
Pandora's box, and Jupiter resolved to drown them 
all with a flood ; but Prometheus, knowing it be- 



32 Young Folks' History of Gcreeee. 

forehand, told his mortal son Deucalion to build 
a ship and store it with all sorts of food. In it 
Deucalion and his Yvdfe Pyrrha floated about for 
nine days till all men had been drowned, and as the 
waters went down the ship rested on Mount Par- 
nassus, and Deucalion and Pyrrha came out and 
offered sacrifices to Jupiter. Pie was appeased, 
and sent Mercury down to ask what he should 
grant them. Their prayer was that the earth might 
be filled again with people, upon which the god 
bade them walk up the hill and throw behind them 
the bones of their grandmother. Now Earth was 
said to be the mother of the Titans, so the bones of 
their grandmother were the rocks, so as they went 
they picked up stones and threw them over their 
shoulders. All those that Deucalion threw rose up 
as men, and all those that Pyrrha threw became 
women, and thus the earth was alive again with 
human beings. No one can fail to see what far 
older histories must have been brought in the minds 
of the Greeks, and have been altered into these 
tales, which have much beauty in themselves. The 
story of the flood seems to have been mixed up 
with some small later inundation which only affect- 
ed Greece. 

The proper old name of Greece was Hellas, and 



The Peopling of Greece. 33 

the people whom we call Greeks called themselves 
Hellenes,* Learned men know that they, like all 
the people of Europe, and also the Persians and 
Hindoos, sprang from one great family of the sons 
of Japhet, called Arians. A tribe called Pelasgi 
came first, and lived in Asia Minor, Greece and 
Italy ; and after them came the Hellenes, who were 
much quicker and cleverer than the Pelasgi, and 
became their masters in most of Greece. So that 
the people we call Creeks were a mixture of the 
two, and they were divided into three lesser tribes 
— the ^Eolians, Dorians, and Ionians. 

Now having told you that bit of truth, I will go 
back to what the Greeks thought. They said that 
Deucalion had a son whose name was Hellen, and 
that he had three sons, called iEolus, Dorus, and 
Xuthus. ^Eolus was the father of the iEolian 
Greeks, and some in after times thought that he 
was the same with the god called JEolus, who was 
thought to live in the Lipari Islands ; and these 
keep guard over the spirits of the winds — Boreas, 
the rough, lively north wind ; Auster, the rainy 
south wind; Eurus, the bitter east; and Zephyr, 
the gentle west. He kept them in a cave, and let 

* "E" and "o" marked thus (e) (6) are pronounced long, as 

"Helleens." 

3 



34 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

one out according to the way the wind was wanted 
to blow, or if there was to be a storm he sent out 
two at once to struggle, and fight, and roar to- 
gether, and lash up Neptune's world, the sea. The 
^Eolians did chiefly live in the islands and at Co- 
rinth. One of the sons of ^Eolus turned out very 
badly, and cheated Jupiter. His name was Sisy- 
phus, and he was punished in Tartarus — Pluto's 
world below — by having always to roll a stone up 
a mountain so steep that it was sure to come down 
upon him again. 

Dorus was, of course, the father of the Dorians ; 
and Xuthus had a son, called Ion, who was the 
father of the Ionians. But, besides all these, there 
was a story of two brothers, named JEgyptus and 
Danaus, one of whom settled in Egypt, and the 
other in Argos. One had fifty sons and the other 
fifty daughters, and JEgyptus decreed that they 
should all marry ; but Danaus and his daughters 
hated their cousins, and the father gave each bride 
a dagger, with which she stabbed her bridegroom. 
Only one had pity, and though the other forty-nine 
were not punished here, yet, when they died and 
went to Tartarus, they did not escape, but were 
obliged to be for ever trying to carry water in bot- 
tomless vessels. The people of Argos called them- 



The Peopling of Greece. 35 

selves Danai, and no doubt some of them came 
from Egypt. 

One more story, and a very strange one, tells of 
the peopling of Greece. A fair lady named Eu- 
ropa, was playing in the meadows on the Phoeni- 
cian coast, when a great white bull came to her, let 
his horns be wreathed with flowers, lay down, and 
invited her to mount his back ; but no sooner had 
she done so, than he rose and trotted down with 
her to the sea, and swam with her out of sight. 
He took her, in fact, to the island of Crete, where 
her son Minos was so good and just a king, that, 
when he died, Pluto appointed him and two others 
to be judges of the spirits of the dead. Europe was 
called after Europa, as the loss of her led settlers 
there from Asia. Europa's family grieved for her, 
and her father, mother, and brother went every- 
where in search of her. Cadmus was the name of 
her brother, and he and his mother went far and 
wide, till the mother died, and Cadmus went to 
Delphi — the place thought to be the centre of the 
earth — where Apollo had slain the serpent Python, 
and where he had a temple and cavern in which 
every question could be answered. Such places of 
divination were called oracles, and Cadmus was 
here told to cease from seeking his sister, and to 



36 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

follow a cow till she fell down with fatigue, and to 
build a city on that spot. The poor cow went till 
she came into Boeotia, and there fell. Cadmus 
meant to offer her up, and went to fetch water from 
a fountain near, but as he stooped a fierce dragon 
rushed on him. He had a hard fight to kill it, but 
Pallas shone out in her beauty on him, and bade 
him sow its teeth in the ground. He did so, and 
they sprung up as warriors, who at once began to 
fight, and killed one another, all but five, who 
made friends, and helped Cadmus to build the 
famous city called Thebes. It is strange, after so 
wild a story as this, to be told that Cadmus first 
taught writing in Greece, and brought the alphabet 
of sixteen letters. The Greek alphabet was really 
learnt from the Phoenicians, and most likely the 
whole is a curious story of some settlement of that 
eastern people in Greece. Most likely they brought 
in the worship of the wine-god, Bacchus (Dionysos), 
for he was called Cadmus's grandson. An orphan 
at first, he was brought up by the nymphs and 
Mercury, and then became a great conqueror, going 
to India, and Egypt, and everywhere, carrying the 
vine and teaching the use of wine. He was at- 
tended by an old fat man, named Silenus, and by 
creatures, called Fauns and Satyrs, like men with 



The Peopling of Greece. 



37 



goats' ears and legs ; his crown was of ivy, and his 
chariot was drawn by leopards, and he was at last 
raised to Olympus. His feasts were called orgies ; 
he-goats were sacrificed at them, and songs were 
sung, after which there was much drinking, and 
people danced holding sticks wreathed with vine 
and ivy leaves. The women who danced Avere 
called Bacchanals. The better sort of Greeks at 
first would not adopt these shameful rites. There 
were horrid stories of women who refused them 
going mad and leaping into the sea, and the Bac- 
chanals used to fall upon and destroy all who re- 
sisted them. 




MARS AND VICTORY. 



CHAPTER IV, 



THE HEKO PEKSEUS. 



A HERO means a great and glorious man, and 
the Greeks thought that they had many- 
such among their forefathers — nay, that they were 
sons of gods, and themselves, after many trials 
and troubles, became gods, since these Greeks of 
old felt that "we are also His offspring." 

Here is a story of one of these heroes. His 
mother was the daughter of an Argive king, and 
was named Danae. He was named Perseus, and 
had bright eyes and golden hair like the morning. 
When he was a little babe, he and his mother were 
out at sea, and were cast on the isle of Seriphos, 
where a fisherman named Dictys took care of them. 
A cruel tyrant named Polydectes wanted Danae to 
be his wife, and, as she would not consent, he shut 

her up in prison, saying that she should never come 

38 



The Hero Perseus. 89 

out till lier son Perseus had brought him the head 
of the Gorgon Medusa, thinking he must be lost by 
the way. For the Gorgons were three terrible 
sisters, who lived in the far west beyond the setting 
sun. Two of them were immortal, and had 
dragon's wings and brazen claws and serpent hair, 
but their sister Medusa was mortal, and so beautiful 
in the face that she had boasted of being fairer than 
Pallas. To punish her presumption, her hair was 
turned to serpents, and whosoever looked on her 
face, sad and lovely as it was, would instantly be 
turned into stone. 

But, for his mother's sake, young Perseus was 
resolved to dare this terrible adventure, and his 
bravery brought help from the gods. The last 
night before he was to set out Pallas came and 
showed him the images of the three Gorgons, and 
bade him not concern himself about the two he 
could not kill ; but she gave him a mirror of 
polished brass, and told him only to look at 
Medusa's reflection on it, for he would become a 
stone if he beheld her real self. Then Mercury 
came and gave Perseus a sword of light that would 
cleave all on whom it might fall, lent him his own 
winged sandals 5 and told him to go first to the 



40 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

nymphs of the Graise, the Gorgons' sisters, and 
make them tell him the way. 

So the young hero went by land and sea, still 
westwards, to the very borders of the world, where 
stands the giant of the west, Atlas, holding up the 
great vault of the skies on his broad shoulders. 
Beyond lay the dreary land of twilight, on the 
shores of the great ocean that goes round the world, 
and on the rocks on the shores sat the three old 
nymphs, the Graiae, who had been born with grey 
hair, and had but one eye and one tooth among 
them, which they passed to one another in turn. 
When the first had seen the noble-looking youth 
speeding to them, she handed her eye on, that the 
next sister might look at him ; but Perseus was too 
quick — he caught the one eye out of her hand, 
and then told the three poor old nymphs that he did 
not want to hurt them, but that he must keep their 
eye till they had told him the way to Medusa the 
Gorgon. 

They told him the way, and, moreover, they gave 
him a mist-cap helmet from Tartarus, which would 
make him invisible whenever he put it on, and also 
a bag, which he slung on his back ; and thus armed, 
he went further to the very bounds of the world, 
and he took his mirror in his hand, and looked in it. 



The Hero Perseus. 41 

There lie saw the three Gorgon sisters, their necks 
covered with scales like those of snakes (at least 
those of two), their teeth like boar's tusks, their 
hands like brass, and their wings of gold ; but they 
were all fast asleep, and Perseus, still looking into 
his mirror, cleft Medusa's neck with his all-cutting 
sword, and put her head into the bag on his back 
without ever seeing her face. Her sisters awoke 
and darted after him ; but he put on his helmet of 
mist, and they lost him, while he fled away on 
Mercury's swift-winged sandals. As he sped east- 
ward, he heard a voice asking whether he had really 
killed the Gorgon. It was Atlas, the old heaven- 
supporting giant; and when Perseus answered 
that he had, Atlas declared that he must see the 
head to convince him. So Perseus put a hand over 
his shoulder, and drew it up by its snaky hair ; but 
no sooner had Atlas cast his eyes on it than he 
turned into a mountain, his white beard and hair 
becoming the snowy peak, and his garments the 
woods and forests. And there he still stands on 
the west coast of Africa, and all our modern map- 
books are named after him. , 

But Perseus' adventures were not over. As he 
flew on by the Lybian coast he heard a sound of 
wailing, and beheld a beautiful maiden chained by 



42 Young Folks 1 History of Greece. 

her hands and feet to a rock. He asked what had 
led her to this sad plight, and she answered that 
she was Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus and 
Cassiopeia, king and queen of Ethiopia, and that 
her mother had foolishly boasted that she was 
fairer than the Nereids, the fifty nymphs who are 
the spirits of the waves. Neptune was so much 
displeased that he sent a flood to overflow the land, 
and a sea-monster to devour the people and cattle. 
In an oasis or isle of fertility in the middle of the 
Lybian desert was a temple of Jupiter, there called 
Amnion, and the Ethiopians had sent there to ask 
what to do. The oracle replied that the evil should 
cease if Andromeda were given up to the monster. 
Cepheus had been obliged to yield her up because 
of the outcries of the people, and here she was 
waiting to be devoured. Perseus, of course, was 
ready. He heard the monster coming, bade An- 
dromeda close her eyes, and then held up the 
Gorgon's head. In an instant her foe had become 
a rock, and he cleft the maiden's chains, brought 
her back to her father and mother, who gave her to 
him in marriage, and made a great feast ; but here 
a former lover of hers insulted them both so much, 
that Perseus was forced to show him the Gorgon's 
face, and turn him into stone. 



The Hero Perseus. 43 

Then Perseus, with Andromeda, took his way to 
Seriphos Indeed it was high time that he shomd 
come back, for Polydectes, thinking that he must 
long ago have been turned into a rock at the signt 
of Medusa, had tried to take Danae by force to be 
his wife, and she had fled into a temple, where no 
one dared to touch her, since it was always be- 
lieved that the gods punished such as dragged 
suppliants away from their temples. So Perseus 
went to Polydectes, who was in the midst of a 
feast, and, telling him that his bidding was done, 
held up the head of Medusa, and of course the 
king and his whole court turned at once into stone. 
Now that the work of the Gorgon's head was done, 
Perseus offered it to. Pallas, who placed it upon her 
shield, or, as it is always called, her aegis ; and he 
gave back the sword of light, cap or mist, and 
winged sandals to Mercury. 

After this he returned to Argos, and there, at a 
game of quoits, he had the misfortune to throw the 
quoit the wrong way, and hit his grandfather, the 
king, so as to kill him. Perseus reigned after- 
wards, and, like all the nobler Greek heroes, kept 
out the worship of Bacchus and its foul orgies from 
his dominions ; but he afterwards exchanged king- 
doms with another king, and built the city of 



44 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Tiryas. He lived happily with Andromeda, and 
had a great many children, whose descendants 
viewed him as a demi-god, and had shrines to him, 
where they offered incense and sacrifice ; for they 
thought that he and all the family were commemo- 
rated in the stars, and named the groups after them. 
You may find them all in the north. Andromeda 
is a great square, as if large stars marked the 
rivets of her chains on the rock ; Perseus, a long 
curved cluster of bright stars, as if climbing up to 
deliver her ; her mother Cassiopeia like a bright W, 
in which the Greeks traced a chair, where she sat 
with her back to the rest to punish her for her 
boast. Cepheus is there too, but he is smaller, and 
less easy to find. They are all in the North, round 
the Great Bear, who was said by the Greeks to be 
a poor lady whom Juno had turned into a bear, and 
who was almost killed unknowingly by her own 
son when out hunting. He is the Little Bear, with 
the pole star in his tail, and she is the Great Bear, 
always circling round him, and, as the Greeks used 
to say, never dipping her muzzle into the ocean, 
because she is so far north that she never sets. 

This story of Perseus is a very old one, which all 
nations have loved to tell, though with different 
names. You will be amused to think that the old 



The Hero Perseus. 



45 



Cornish way of telling it is found in u Jack the 
Giant-Killer," who had seven-leagued boots and a 
cap of mist, and delivered fair ladies from their 
cruel foes. 




CHAPTER V. 

THE LABORS OF HERCULES. 

ONE morning Jupiter boasted among the gods 
in Olympus that a son would that day be 
born in the line of Perseus, who would rule over 
all the Argives. Juno was angry and jealous at 
this, and, as she was the goddess who presided over 
the births of children, she contrived to hinder the 
birth of the child he intended till that day was 
over, and to hasten that of another grandson of 
the great Perseus. This child was named Eurys- 
theus, and, as he had been born on the right day, 
Jupiter was forced to let him be king of Argos, 
Sparta, and Mycenae, and all the Dorian race; 
while the boy whom he had meant to be the chief 
was kept in subjection, in spite of having wonder- 
ful gifts of courage and strength, and a kind, 

46 




THE CHOICE OF HERCULES. 



The Labors of Hercules. 49 

generous nature, that always was ready to help the 

weak and sorrowful. 

His name was Alcides, or Hercules, and he was 

so strong at ten months old, that, with his own 

hands, he strangled two serpents whom Juno sent 

to devour him in his cradle. He was bred up by 

Chiron, the chief of the Centaurs, a wonderful race 

of beings, who had horses' bodies as far as the forer 

legs, but where the neck of the horse would begin 

had human breasts and shoulders, with arms and 

heads. Most of them were fierce and savage ; but 

Chiron was very wise and good, and, as Jupiter 

made him immortal, he was the teacher of many of 

the great Greek heroes. When Hercules was about 

eighteen, two maidens appeared to him — one in a 

simple white dress, grave, modest, and seemly ; the 

other scantily clothed, but tricked out in ornaments, 

with a flushed face, and bold, roving eyes. The 

first told him that she was Virtue, and that, if he 

would follow her, she would lead him through 

many hard trials, but that he would be glorious at 

last, and be blest among the gods. The other was 

Vice, and she tried to wile him by a smooth life 

among wine-cups and dances and flowers and 

sports, all to be enjoyed at once. But the choice 

of Hercules was Virtue, and it was well for him ; 

4 



50 



Young Folks' History of Greece* 



for Jupiter, to make up for Juno's cheat, had sworn 
that, if he fulfilled twelve tasks which Eurystheus 
should put upon him, he should be declared worthy 
of being raised to the gods at his death. 

Eurystheus did not know that in giving these 
tasks he was making his cousin fulfil his course ; 
but he was afraid of such a mighty man, and hoped 
that one of these would be the means of getting rid 
of him. So when he saw Hercules at Argos, with 
a club made of a forest tree in his hand, and clad in 
the skin of a lion which he had slain, Eurystheus 
bade him go and kill a far more terrible lion, of 
giant brood, and with a skin that could not be 

pierced, which dwelt in the 
valley of Nemea. The 
fight was a terrible one; 
the lion could not be 
wounded, and Hercules 
was forced to grapple with 
it, and strangle it in his 
He lost a finger in 




arms. 



the struggle, but at last the beast died in his grasp, 
and he carried it out on his back to Argos, where 
Eurystheus was so much frightened at the grim 
sight that he fled away to hide himself, and com- 



The Labors of Hercules. 



51 



manded Hercules not to bring his monsters within 
the gates of the city. 

There was a second labor ready for Hercules — « 
namely, the destroying a serpent with nine heads, 
called Hydra, whose lair was the marsh of Lerna. 
Hercules went to the battle, and managed to crush 
one head with his club, but that moment two 
sprang up in its place ; moreover, a huge crab came 
out of the swamp, and began to pinch his heels. 
Still he did not lose heart, but calling his friend 
Iolaus, he bade him take a fire-brand and burn the 
necks as fast as he cut 
off the heads ; and thus 
at last they killed the 
creature, and Hercules 
dipped his arrows in its 
poisonous blood, so that 
their least wound be- 
came fatal. Eurystheus 
said that it had not been 
a fair victory, since Her- 
cules had been helped, and Juno put the crab into the 
skies as the constellation Cancer ; while a labor to 
patience was next devised for Hercules — namely, 
the chasing of the Arcadian stag, which was sacred 
to Diana, and had golden horns and brazen hoofs. 




52 Young Folks'' History of Greece. 

Hercules hunted it up hill and down dale for a 
whole year, and when at last he caught it, he got 
into trouble with Apollo and Diana about it, and 
had hard work to appease them ; but he did so at 
last ; and for his fourth labor was sent to catch 
alive a horrid wild boar on Mount Erymanthus. 
He followed the beast through a deep swamp, 
caught it in a net, and brought it to Mycenae. 

The fifth task was a curious one. Augeas, king 
of Elis, had immense herds, and kept his stables 
and cow-houses in a frightful state of filth, and 
Eurystheus, hoping either to disgust Hercules or 
kill him by the unwholesomeness of the work, sent 
him to clean them. Hercules, without telling 
Augeas it was his appointed task offered to do it 
if he were repaid the tenth of the herds, and 
received the promise on oath. Then he dug a 
canal, and turned the water of two rivers, into the 
stables, so as effectually to cleanse them ; but when 
Augeas heard it was his task, he tried to cheat him 
of the payment, and on the other hand Eurystheus 
said, as he had been rewarded, it could not count 
as one of his labors, and ordered him off to clear 
the woods near Lake Stymphalis of some horrible 
birds, with brazen beaks and claws, and ready-made 
arrows for feathers, which ate human flesh. To 



The Labors of Hercules. 53 

get them to rise out of the forest was his first diffi- 
culty, but Pallas lent him a brazen clapper, which 
made them take to their wings ; then he shot them 
with his poisoned arrows, killed many and drove 
the rest away. 

King Minos of Crete had once vowed to sacrifice 
to the gods whatever should appear from the sea. 
A beautiful white bull came, so fine that it tempted 
him not to keep his word, and he was punished by 
the bull going mad, and doing all sorts of damage 
iu Crete ; so that Eurystheus thought it would serve 
as a labor for Hercules to bring the animal to 
Mycenae. In due time back came the hero, with 
the bull, quite subdued, upon his shoulders , and, hav- 
ing shown it, he let it loose again to run about Greece. 

He had a harder task in getting the mares of the 
Thracian king, Diomedes, which were fed on man's 
flesh. He overcame their grooms, and drove the 
beasts away ; but he was overtaken by Diomedes, 
and, while fighting with him and his people, put the 
mares under the charge of a friend , but when the 
battle was over, and Diomedes killed, he found that 
they had eaten up their keeper. However, when 
he had fed them on the dead body of their late 
master, they grew mild and manageable and he 
brought them home. 



54 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

The next expedition was against the Amazons, a 
nation of women warriors, who lived somewhere on 
the banks of the Euxine or Black sea, kept their 
husbands in subjection, and seldom brought up a 
son. The bravest of all the Amazons was the 
queen, Hippolyta, to whom Mars had given a belt 
as a reward for her valor. Eurystheus' daughter 
wanted this belt, and Hercules was sent to fetch it. 
He was so hearty, honest, and good-natured, that 
he talked over Hippolyta, and she promised him 
her girdle ; but Juno, to make mischief, took the 
form of an Amazon, and persuaded the ladies that 
their queen was being deluded and stolen away by 
a strange man, so they mounted their horses and 
came down to rescue her. He thought she had 
been treacherous, and there was a great fight, in 
which he killed her, and carried off her girdle. 

Far out in the west, near the ocean flowing round 
the world, were herds of purple oxen, guarded by 
a two-headed dog, and belonging to a giant with 
three bodies called Geryon, who lived in the isle of 
Erythria, in the outmost ocean. Passing Lybia, 
Hercules came to the end of the Mediterranean 
Sea, Neptune's domain, and there set up two pillars 
— namely, Mounts Calpe and Abyla — on each side 
of the Straits of Gibraltar. The rays of the sun 



The Labors of Hercules* 55 

scorched him, and in wrath he shot at it with his 
arrows, when Helios, instead of being angry, ad- 
mired his boldness, and gave him his golden cup, 
wherewith to cross the outer ocean, which he did 
safely, although old Oceanus, who was king there, 
put up his hoary head, and tried to frighten him by 
shaking the bowl. It was large enough to hold all 
the herd of oxen, when Hercules had killed dog, 
herdsman, and giant, and he returned it safely to 
Helios when he had crossed the ocean. The oxen 
were sacrificed to Juno, Eurystheus' friend. 

Again Eurystheus sent Hercules to the utmost 
parts of the earth. This time it was to bring home 
the golden apples which grew in the gardens of the 
Hesperides, the daughters of old Atlas, who dwelt 
in the land of Hesperus the Evening Star, and, 
together with a dragon, guarded the golden tree in 
a beautiful garden. Hercules made a long journey, 
apparently round by the North, and on his way had 
to wrestle with a dreadful giant named Antaeus. 
Though thrown down over and over again, Antaeus 
rose up twice as strong every time, till Hercules 
found out that he grew in force whenever he 
touched his mother earth, and therefore, lifting him 
up in those mightiest of arms, the hero squeezed 
the breath out of him. By-and-by he came to 



56 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

Mount Caucasus, where lie found the chained 
Prometheus, and, aiming an arrow at the eagle, 
killed the tormentor, and set the Titan free. In 
return, Prometheus gave him much good counsel, 
and indeed seems to have gone with him to Atlas, 
who, according to this story, was still able to move, 
in spite of the petrifaction by Hercules' grandfather. 
Atlas undertook to go to his daughters, and get the 
apples, if Hercules would hold up the skies for him 
in the meantime. Hercules agreed, and Atlas 
shifted the heavens to his shoulders, went, and 
presently returned with three apples of gold, but 
said he would take them to Eurystheus, and Her- 
cules must continue to bear the load of the skies. 
Prometheus bade Hercules say he could not hold 
them without a pad for them to rest on his head. 
Atlas took them again to hold while the pad was 
put on; and thereupon Hercules picked up the 
apples, and left the old giant to his load. 

One more labor remained — namely, to bring up 
the three-headed watch-dog, Cerberus, from the 
doors of Tartarus. Mercury and Pallas both came 
to attend him, and led him alive among the shades, 
who all fled from him, except Medusa and one 
brave youth. He gave them the blood of an ox to 
drink, and made his way to Pluto's throne, where 



The Labors of Hercules. 57 

he asked leave to take Cerberus to the upper world 
with him. Pluto said he might, if he could overcome 
Cerberus without weapons ; and this he did, strug- 
gling with the dog, with no protection but the lion's 
skin, and dragging him up to the light, where the 
foam that fell from the jaws of one of the three 
mouths produced the plant called aconite, or helle- 
bore, which is dark and poisonous. After showing 
the beast to Euiystheus, Hercules safely returned 
him to the under world, and thus completed his 
twelve great labors. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE ARGONAUTS. 



"\7"OU remember that Cadmus founded Thebes. 
■*■ One of his daughters was named Ino. She 
married a son of king iEolus, who had been married 
before, and had two children, Phryxus and Hellc. 
Ino was a cruel stepmother, and deceived her hus- 
band into thinking that the oracle at Delphi re- 
quired him to sacrifice his son to Jupiter ; but as 
the poor boy stood before the altar, down from the 
skies came a ram with a golden fleece, which took 
both the children on his back, and fled away with 
them over land and sea ; but poor Helle let go in 
passing the narrow strait between Asia and Europe, 
fell into the sea, and was drowned. The strait was 
called after her, the Hellespont, or Helle's Sea. 
Phryxus came safely to Colchis, on the Black Sea, 

and was kindly received by JEetes, the king of the 

5S 



The Argonauts. 59 

country. They sacrificed the golden-wooled ram to 
Jupiter, and nailed up its fleece to a tree in the 
grove of Mars. 

Some time after, Pelias, the usurping Jdng of 
Iolcus, was driving a mule-car through the market- 
place, when he saw a fine young man, with hair 
flowing on his shoulders, two spears in his hand, 
and only one sandal. He was very much afraid, for 
it had been foretold to him by an oracle that he 
would be slain by the man with one foot bare. 
And this youth was really Jason, the son of his 
brother iEson, from whom he had taken the king- 
dom. Fearing that he would kill the child, ^Eson 
had sent it away to the cave of the Centaur Chiron, 
by whom Jason had been bred up, and had now 
come to seek his fortune. He had lost his shoe in 
the mud, while kindly carrying an old woman 
across a river, little knowing that she was really the 
goddess Juno, who had come down in that form to 
make trial of the kindness of men, and who was 
thus made his friend for ever. Pelias sent for the 
young stranger the next day, and asked him what 
he would do if he knew who was the man fated to 
kill him. "I should send him to fetch the Golden 
Fleece," said Jason. 

"Then go and fetch it, 5 ' said Pelias, 



60 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Jason thereupon began building a ship, which he 
called Argo, and proclaimed the intended expe- 
dition throughout Greece, thus gathering together 
all the most famous heroes then living, most of 
whom had, like him, been brought up by the great 
Centaur Chiron. Hercules was one of them, and 
another was Theseus, the great hero of the Ionian 
city of Athens, whose prowess was almost equal to 
that of Hercules. He had caught and killed the 
great white bull which Hercules had brought from 
Crete and let loose, and he had also destroj r ed the 
horrid robber Procrustes (the Stretcher), who had 
kept two iron bedsteads, one long and one short. 
He put tall men into the short bed, and cut them 
down to fit it, and short men into the long bed, 
pulling them out till they died, until Theseus fin- 
ished his life on one of his own beds. 

Another deed of Theseus was in Crete. The 
great white bull which Minos ought to have sacri- 
ficed had left a horrible offspring, a monster called 
the Minotaur, half man and half bull, which ate 
human flesh, and did horrible harm, till a clever 
artificer named Daedalus made a dwelling for it 
called the Labyrinth, approached by so many cross 
paths, winding in and out in a maze, that every- 
one who entered it was sure to lose himself; and 




THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR. 



The Argonauts. 63 

the Minotaur could never get out, but still they fed 
him there ; and as Athens was subject to Crete, the 
people were required to send every year a tribute 
of seven youths and seven maidens for the Minotaur 
to devour. Theseus offered himself to be one of 
these, telling his father that whereas a black sail 
was always carried by the ship that bore these 
victims to their death, he would, if he succeeded in 
killing the Minotaur, as he hoped to do, hoist a 
white one when coming home. When he reached 
Crete, he won the heart of Minos' daughter Ariadne, 
who gave him a skein of thread : by unwinding this 
as he went he would leave a clue behind him, by 
which he could find his way out of the labyrinth, 
after killing the monster. When this was done, by 
his great skill and strength, he took ship again, and 
Ariadne came with him ; but he grew tired of her, 
and left her behind in the isle of Naxos, where 
Bacchus found her weeping, consoled her, and 
gave her a starry crown, which may be seen in the 
sky on a summer night. Theseus, meantime, went 
back to Athens, but he had forgotten his promise 
about the white sail, and his poor old father, seeing 
the black one, as he sat watching on the rocks 
thought that ill news was coming, fell down, and 
was drowned, just as Theseus sailed safely into port. 



64 Young Folks 9 F^tory of Greece. 

Theseus was a friend of Hercules, had been with 
him on his journey to the land of the Amazons, and 
had married one of them named Antiope. 

Two more of the Argonauts were Castor and 
Pollux, the twin sons of Leda, queen of Sparta. 
She had also two daughters, named Helen and Cly- 
temnestra, and Helen was growing into the most 
beautiful woman in the world. These children, in 
the fable, had been hatched from two huge swans' 
eggs ; Castor and Clytemnestra were in one egg, 
and Pollux and Helen in the other. Castor and 
Pollux were the most loving of brothers, and 
while Castor was famous for horsemanship, Pollux 
was the best of boxers. They, too, had been pupils 
of Chiron ; so was Peleus of JEgina, who had wooed 
Thetis, one of the fifty Nereids, or sea-nymphs, 
though she changed herself into all sorts of forms 
when he caught her first — fire, water, a serpent, 
and a lioness ; but he held her fast through all, and 
at last she listened to him, and all the gods and 
goddesses had come to the wedding feast. They 
had one son, named Achilles, whom Thetis had 
tried to make immortal after Ceres' fashion, by 
putting him on the fire at night ; but, like Triptol- 
emus' mother, Peleus had cried out and spoilt the 
spell. Then she took the boy to the river Styx, 



The Argonauts. 65 

and bathed him there, so that he became invulner- 
able all over, except in the heel by which she held 
him. The child was now in Chiron's cave, being 
fed with the marrow of lions and bears, to make 
him strong and brave. 

One more Argonaut must be mentioned, namely, 
the minstrel Orpheus. He was the son of the muse 
Calliope, and was looked on as the first of the 
many glorious singers of Greece, who taught the 
noblest and best lessons. His music, when he 
played on the lyre, was so sweet, that all the ani- 
mals, both fierce and gentle, came round to hear it ; 
and not only these, but even the trees and rocks 
gathered round, entranced by the sweetness. 

All these and more, to the number of fifty, 
joined Jason in his enterprise. The Argo, the ship 
which bore them, had fifty oars, and in the keel 
was a piece of wood from the great oak of Dodona, 
which could speak for the oracles. When all was 
ready, Jason stood on the poop, and poured forth a 
libation from a golden cup, praying aloud to Jupi- 
ter, to the Winds, the Days, the Nights, and to 
Fate to grant them a favorable voyage. Old Chiron 
came down from his hills to cheer them, and pray 
for their return ; and as the oars kept measured 

5 



6Q Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

time, Orpheus struck his lyre in tune with their 
splash in the blue waters. 

They had many adventures. After passing the 
Hellespont, they found in the Propontis, which we 
call the Sea of Marmora, an islet called the Bears' 
Hill, inhabited by giants with six arms, whom they 
slew. 

In Mysia a youth named Hylas went ashore to 
fetch water, but was caught by the nymphs of the 
stream and taken captive. Hercules, hearing his 
cry, went in search of him, and, as neither returned, 
the Argo sailed without them. No more was heard 
of Hylas, but Hercules went back to Argos. 

They next visited Phineus, a wise old blind king, 
who was tormented by horrid birds called Harpies, 
with women's faces. These monsters always came 
down when he was going to eat, devoured the food, 
and spoilt what they did not eat. The Argonauts 
having among them two winged sons of Boreas 
(the north wind), hunted these horrible creatures 
far out in the Mediterranean. Phineus then told 
them that they would have to pass between some 
floating rocks called the Symplegades, which were 
always enveloped in mist, were often driven to- 
gether by the wind, and crushed whatever was 
between. He told them to let fly a dove, and if it 



The Argonauts. 437 

went through safely they might follow. They did 
so, and the dove came out at the other side, but 
with her tail clipped off as the rocks met. How- 
ever, on went the Argo, each hero rowing for his 
life, and Juno and Pallas helping them ; and, after 
all, they were but just in time, and lost the orna- 
ments at their stern ! Fate had decreed that, when 
once a ship passed through these rocks unhurt, 
they should become fixed, and thus they were no 
longer dangerous. It does not seem unlikely that 
this story might have come from some report of the 
dangers of icebergs. Of course there are none in the 
Black Sea, but the Greeks, who knew little beyond 
their own shores, seem to have fancied that this 
was open to the north into the great surrounding 
ocean, and the Phoenicians, who were much more 
adventurous sailors than they, may have brought 
home histories of the perils they met in the At- 
lantic Ocean. 

The Argonauts had one more encounter with 
Hercules' old foes, the birds of Stymphalis, and af- 
ter this safely arrived at Colchis, and sailed into 
the mouth of the river Phasis, from which it is said 
the pheasant takes its name. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SUCCESS OF THE ARGONAUTS. 

WHEN Jason arrived at Colchis, he sent to 
King ^Eetes and asked of him the Golden 
Fleece. To this JEetes replied that he might have 
it, provided he could yoke the two brazen-footed 
bulls with flaming breath, which had been a present 
from Vulcan, and with them plough a piece of land, 
and sow it with the dragon's teeth. Pallas had 
given iEetes half the teeth of the dragon of 
Thebes, which had been slain bv Cadmus. 

The task seemed beyond his reach, till Medea, 
the wicked witch, daughter of iEetes, promised 
to help him, on condition that he would marry 
her, and take her to Greece. When Jason had 
sworn to do so, Medea gave him an ointment with 
which to rub himself, also his shield and spear. 

For a whole day afterwards neither sword nor 

68 




THE GOLDEN FLEECE WON. 



The Success of the Argonauts. 71 

fire should hurt him, and he would thus be able to 
master the bulls. So he found it ; he made them 
draw £he plough, and then he sowed the teeth, 
which came up, like those sown by Cadmus, as 
armed men, who began 3 to attack him ; but, as Me- 
dea had bidden him, he threw a stone among them, 
and they began to fight with one another, so that 
he could easily kill the few who spared each other. 

Still JEetes refused to give him the fleece, and 
was about to set fire to the Argo, and kill the crew ; 
but Medea warned Jason in time, and led him 
to the spot where it was nailed against a tree. 
Orpheus lulled the guardian dragon to sleep with 
his lyre, while Jason took down the fleece ; and 
Medea joined them, carrying in her arms her little 
brother, whom she had snatched from his bed with 
a cruel purpose, for when her father took alarm 
and gave chase, she cut the poor child to pieces, 
and strewed his limbs on the stream of the Phasis, 
so that, while her father waited to collect them, the 
Argo had time to sail away. 

It did not return by the same route, but went to 
the north, and came to the isle of the goddess of 
Circe, who purified Jason and Medea from the 
blood of the poor boy. Then they came to the 
isle of the Sirens, creatures like fair maidens, who 



72 Young Folks' History of G-reece* 

stood on the shore, singing so sweetly that no sailor 
could resist the charm ; but the moment any man 
reached the shore, they strangled him and sucked 
his blood. Warned by Medea, Orpheus played 
and sang so grandly as to drown their fatal song, 
and the Argo came out into the Mediterranean 
somewhere near Trinacria, the three-cornered island 
now called Sicily, where they had to pass between 
two lofty cliffs. In a cave under one of these lived 
a monster called Scylla, with twelve limbs and six 
long necks, with a dog's head to each, ready each 
to seize a man out of every ship that passed ; but 
it was safer to keep on her side than to go to the 
other cliff, for there a water-witch named Chary b- 
dis lived in a whirlpool, and was sure to suck the 
wdiole ship in, and swallow it up. However, for 
her husband Peleus' sake, Thetis and her sis- 
ter Nereids came and guided the Argo safely 
through. 

When the crew returned to Iolcus, they had only 
been absent four months ; and Jason gave the 
fleece to his uncle Pelias, and dedicated the Argo 
to Neptune. He found his father iEson grown 
very old, but Medea undertook to restore him to 
youth. She went forth by moonlight, gathered a 
number of herbs, and then, putting them in a cal- 



The Success of the Argonauts. 73 

dron, she cut old ^Eson into pieces, threw them 
in, and boiled them all night. In the morning 
iEson appeared as a lively black-haired young man, 
no older than his son. Pelias' daughters came and 
begged her to teach tjiem the same spell. She 
feigned to do so, but she did not tell them the true 
herbs, and thus the poor maidens only slew their 
father, and did not bring him to life again. The 
son of Pelias drove the treacherous Medea and her 
husband from Iolcus, and then went to Corinth, 
where they lived ten years, until Jason grew weary 
of Medea, and put her away, in order to marry 
Creusa, the king's daughter. In her rage, Medea 
sent the bride the fatal gift of a poisoned robe, 
then she killed her own children, and fled away, in 
a chariot drawn by winged serpents, to the east, 
where she became the mother of a son named 
Medus, from whom the nation of Medes was de- 
scended. As to Jason, he had fallen asleep at noon 
one hot day under the shade of the Argo, where it 
was drawn up on the sand by Neptune's temple, 
when a bit of wood broke off from the prow, fell on 
his head, and killed him. 

Of the other Argonauts, Orpheus went to Thes- 
saly, and there taught and softened the people 
much by his music. He married a fair maiden 



74 Young Folks' History of Greeceo 

named Eurydice, with whom he lived happily and 
peacefully, till she was bitten by a venomous ser- 
pent and died. Orpheus was so wretched that he 
set forth to try to bring her back from Tartarus. 
He went with nothing but his lyre, and his music 
was so sweet tljat Cerberus stood listening, and let 
him pass, and all the torments of the Danaids, 
Sisyphus and all the rest, ceased while he was play- 
ing. His song even brought tears into Pluto's 
eyes, and Proserpine, who guarded the female dead, 
gave him leave to take back Eurydice to the light 
of day, provided he did not once look back as he 
led her out of Tartarus. 

Orpheus had to walk first, and, as he went up 
the long, dark cavern, with Eurydice behind him, 
he carefully obeyed, till, just as he was reaching the 
upper air, he unhappily forgot, and turned his head 
to see whether she were following. He just saw 
her stretch out her hands to him, and then she was 
drawn back, and vanished from his sight. The 
gates were closed, and he had lost her again. 
After this he wandered sadly about, all his songs 
turned to woe, until at last the Bacchanal women, 
in fury at his despising the foul rites of their god, 
tore him limb from limb. The Muses collected 
his remains, and gave them funeral rites, and 



The Success of the Argonauts. 75 

Jupiter placed his tyre in the skies, where you may- 
know it by one of the brightest of all our stars. 

Hercules also made another visit to the realms 
below. Admetus, one of the iEolian kings, had 
obtained from Apollo that, when the time came for 
him to die, his life should be prolonged if anyone 
would submit to death in his turn. The call came 
while Admetus was still young, and he besought 
his old father, and then his mother, to die in his 
stead ; but they would not, and it was his fair 
young Avife Alcestis who gave her life for his. 
Just as she was laid in the tomb, Hercules came to 
visit Admetus, and, on hearing what had happened, 
he went down to the kingdom of Pluto and brought 
her back. Or some say he sat by her tomb, and 
wrestled with Death when he came to seize her. 

But, strong as he was, Hercules had in time to 
meet death himself. He had married a nymph 
named Deianira, and was taking her home, when 
he came to a river where a Centaur named Nessus 
lived, and gained his bread by carrying travelers 
over on his back. Hercules paid him the price for 
carrying Deianira over, while he himself crossed 
on foot ; but as soon as the river was between them, 
the faithless Centaur began to gallop away with the 
lady. Hercules sent an arrow after him, which 



76 Young Folks* History of Greece* 

brought him to the ground, and as he was dying he 
prepared his revenge, by telling Deianira that his 
blood was enchanted with love for her, and that if 
ever she found her husband's affection failing her, 
she had only to make him put on a garment anoint- 
ed with it, and his heart would return to her, he 
knew full well that his blood was full of the poison 
of the Hydra, but poor Deianira believed him, and 
had saved, some of the blood before Hercules came 
up. 

Several years after, Hercules made prisoner a 
maiden named Iole, in Lydia, after gaining a great 
victory. Landing in the island of Eubcea, he was 
going to make a great sacrifice to Jupiter, and 
sent home to Deianira for a festal garment to wear 
at it. She was afraid he was falling in love with 
Iole, and steeped the garment in the preparation 
she had made from Nessus' blood. No sooner did 
Hercules put it on, than his veins were filled with 
agony, which nothing could assuage. He tried to 
tear off the robe, but the skin and flesh came with 
it, and his blood was poisoned beyond relief. He 
sailed home, and when Deianira saw the state he 
was in she hung herself for grief, while he charged 
Hylas, Ms eldest son, to take care of Iole, and 
marry her as soon as he grew up. Then, unable to 



The Success of the Argonauts. 77 

bear the pain any longer, and knowing that by his 
twelve tasks he had earned the prize of endless life, 
he went to Mount (Eta, crying aloud with . the 
pain, so that the rocks rang again with the sound. 
He gave his quiver of arrows to his friend Philoc- 
tetes, charging him to collect his ashes and bury 
them, but never to make known the spot; and 
then he tore up, with his mighty strength, trees by 
the roots enough to form a funeral pile, lay down 
on it, and called on his friend to set fire to it; 
but no one could bear to do so, till a shepherd con- 
sented to thrust in a torch. Then thunder was 
heard, a cloud came down, and he was borne away 
to Olympus, while Philoctetes collected and buried 
the ashes. 

His young sons were banished by Eurystheus, 
and were taken by his old friend Iolaus to seek 
shelter in various cities, but only the Athenians 
were brave enough to let them remain. Theseus 
had been driven away and banished from Athens ; 
but the citizens sheltered the sons of the hero, and, 
when Eurystheus pursued them, a battle was 
fought on the isthmus of Corinth, in which the old 
enemy of Hercules was killed by Iolaus, with all 
his sons. Then the Heraclieds (sons of Hercules) 
were going to fight their way back to Argos, but 



78 Young Folks' History of G-reeee 

an army met them at the isthmus, and was going 
to give them battle, when Hylas proposed that he 
should fight with a single champion chosen on the 
other side. If he gained, he was to be restored to 
the kingdom of Perseus ; if not there was to be a 
truce for a hundred years. Hylas had not the 
strength of his father ; he w T as slain, and his brothers 
had to retreat and bide their time. 

Argos came into the power of Agamemnon, who 
had married Clytemnestra, the sister of Castor and 
Pollux, while his brother Menelaus married the 
beautiful Helen. All the Greek heroes had been 
snitors for Helen, the fairest woman living, and 
they all swore to one another that, choose she 
whom she might, they would all stand by him, and 
punish any one who might try to steal her from 
him. Her choice fell on Menelaus, and soon after 
her wedding her brother Castor was slain, and 
though Pollux was immortal, he could not bear to 
live without his brother, and prayed to share his 
death ; upon which Jupiter made them both stars, 
the bright ones called Gemini, or the Twins, and 
Menelaus reigned with Helen at Sparta, as Aga- 
memnon did at Mycenae. 

These two were sons of Atreus, and were de- 
scended from Tantalus, once a favorite of the gods, 



The Success of the Argonauts. 79 

who used to come down and feast with him, until 
once he took his son Pelops and dressed him for 
their meal. Jupiter found it out, collected the 
" limbs, and restored the boy to life ; but Ceres had 
been so distracted with grief about her daughter, 
that she had eaten one shoulder, and Jupiter had 
given him an ivory one instead. Tantalus was 
sent to Tartarus, where his punishment was to pine 
with hunger and thirst, with a feast before him, 
where he neither could touch the food nor the 
drink, because there was a rock hung over his head 
threatening to crush him. Pelops was a wonder- 
ful charioteer, and won his bride in the chariot 
race, having bribed the charioteer of his rival to 
leave out the linchpins of his wheels. Afterwards, 
when the charioteer asked a reward, Pelops threw 
him into the sea ; and this was the second crime 
that brought a doom on the race. Pelops gave his 
name to the whole peninsula now called the Morea, 
or mulberry-leaf, but which was all through ancient 
times known as the Peloponnesus, or Isle of Pelops. 
He reigned at Elis, and after his death his sons 
Atreus and Thyestes struggled for the rule, but 
both were horribly wicked men, and Atreus was 
said to have killed two sons of Thyestes, and 
served them up to him at a feast. There was, 



80 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



therefore, a heavy curse on the whole family, both 
on ^Egisthus, son of Thyestes, and on his cousins 
Agamemnon and Menelaus, the Atridae, or sons of 
Atreus. 




CHAPTER VIII. 



THE CHOICE OF PARIS. 



THE gods and goddesses were merrily feasting 
when Ate, the goddess of strife, desirous of 
making mischief, threw down among them a golden 
apple, engraven with the words, " This apple to the 
Fair." The three goddesses, Juno, Pallas, and 
Venus, each thought it meant for her — one having 
the beauty of dignity, the other the beauty of wis- 
dom, and the third the beauty of grace and fairness. 
They would not accept the award of any of the 
gods, lest they should not be impartial ; but they 
declared that no one should decide between them 
but Paris, a shepherd, though a king's son, who 
was keeping his flocks on Mount Ida. 

Each goddess tried to allure him to choose her 
by promises. Juno offered him a mighty throne ; 

Pallas promised to make him the wisest of men; 
81 6 



82 Young Folks 9 History of Greece. 

Venus declared that she would give him the fairest 
woman on earth for his wife for ten years — she 
could assure him of no more. And it was Venus to 
whom Paris assigned the golden apple of discord, 
thus bitterly offending Juno and Pallas, who be- 
came the enemies of his nation. 

His nation was the Trojan, who dwelt on the 
east coast of the JEgean Sea, and were of the Pelas- 
gic race. Their chief city was Troy, with the 
citadel Ilium, lying near the banks of the rivers 
Simois and Scamander, between the sea shore and 
the wooded mount of Ida, in the north-east of the 
peninsula we call Asia Minor. The story went 
that the walls had been built by Neptune and 
Apollo, the last of whom had brought the stones to 
their place by the music of his lyre ; but the king 
who was then reigning had refused to pay them, 
and had thus made them also his foes. But within 
the citadel was an image of Pallas, three ells long, 
with a spear in one hand and a distaff in the other, 
which was called the Palladium. It was said to 
have been given by Jupiter to Ilus, the first 
founder of the city ; and as long as it was within 
the walls, the place could never be taken. 

The present king was Priam, and his wife was 
Hecuba. They had nineteen children, and lived in 



The Choice of Paris. 83 

a palace built round a court, with an altar in the 
middle, their sons having houses likewise opening 
into the court, Paris, who was worthless and 
pleasure-loving, was the eldest son ; Hector, a 
very noble person, was the second. After Paris 
had given judgment in her favor, Venus directed 
him to build a ship, and go to visit the Greek 
kings. He was kindly entertained everywhere, 
and especially at Sparta ; and here it was that 
Venus fulfilled her promise, by helping him to steal 
away Helen, the fairest of women, while her hus- 
band Menelaus was gone to Crete. 

As soon as Menelaus found out how his hospital- 
ity had been misused, he called upon all the Greek 
heroes to remember their oath, and help him to re- 
cover his wife, and take vengeance on Paris. Every- 
one replied to the call ; but the wise Ulysses, grand- 
son of Sisyphus, and king of the little isle of Ithaca, 
could not bear to leave his home, or his fair young 
wife Penelope, for a war which he knew would be 
long and terrible, so he feigned to be mad, and 
began furiously ploughing the sea shore with a 
yoke of oxen. However, the next cleverest hero, 
Palamedes, to prove him, placed his infant son 
Telemachus full in the way of the plough, and 
when Ulysses turned it aside from the child, they 



84 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

declared that his madness was only pretended, and 
he was forced to go with them. 

The Nereid Thetis knew that if her brave and 
beautiful son Achilles went to Troy, he would die 
there ; so she dressed him as a maiden, and placed 
him at the court of the king of Scyros, where he 
stayed for love of one of the king's daughters. But 
the Greeks had a man named Calchas, who was an 
augur — that is, he could tell what was going to 
• happen by the flight of birds, by the clouds, and by 
the inwards of sacrificed animals. Calchas told the 
Greeks that Troy would never be taken unless 
Achilles went with them. So Ulysses, guessing 
where the youth was, disguised himself as a mer- 
chant, and went with his wares to the palace of 
Scyros. All the maidens came forth to look at 
them, and while most were busy with the jewels 
and robes, one, tall and golden-haired, seemed to 
care for nothing but a bright sword, holding it 
with a strong, firm hand. Then Ulysses knew he 
had found Achilles, and told him of the famous 
war that was beginning, and the youth threw off 
his maiden's garb, put on his armor, and went 
eagerly with them ; but before he went he married 
the. fair Deidamia, and left her to wait for him at 
Scyros, where she had a son named Pyrrhus. 



The Choice of Paris. 85 

Indeed the Greeks were whole years gathering 
their forces, and when they did all meet at last, 
with their ships and men, Agamemnon, king of 
Mycenae, Menelaus' brother, took the lead of them 
all. As they were sacrificing to Jupiter, a snake 
glided up a tree, where there was a sparrow's nest, 
and ate up all the eight young ones, and then the 
mother bird. On seeing this, Calchas foretold that 
the Avar would last nine years, and after the ninth 
Troy would be taken. 

However, they sailed on, till at Aulis they were 
stopped by foul winds for many daj^s, and Calchas 
told them it was because of Agamemnon's broken 
vow. He had sworn, one year, to sacrifice to 
Diana the fairest thing that was born in his house 
or lands. The fairest thing that was born was his 
little daughter Iphigenia ; but he could not bear to 
sacrifice her, and so had tried offering his choicest 
kid. Now Diana sent these winds to punish him, 
and the other kings required him to give up his 
child. So a message was sent to her mother, Cly- 
temnestra, to send her, on pretence that she was to 
be married to Achilles, and when she came to 
Aulis she found that it was oixly to be offered up. 
However, she resigned herself bravely, and was 
ready to die for her father and the cause ; but just 



86 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

as Agamemnon had his sword ready, and had cov- 
ered her face that he might not see her pleading 
eyes as he was slaying her, Diana took pity, darted 
down in a cloud, and in the place of the maiden a 
white hind lay on the altar to be offered. Iphige- 
nia was really carried off to serve as priestess at 
Diana's temple at Tauris, but it was long before it 
was known wdiat had become of her, and Clytem- 
nestra never forgave Agamemnon for what he had 
intended to do. 

At the isle of Tenedos the Greeks had to leave 
behind Philoctetes, the friend of Hercules, who had 
his quiver of poisoned arrows, because the poor 
man had a wound in his heel, which was in such a 
dreadful state that no one could bear to come near 
him. One story was that he was bitten by a water- 
snake, another that when he was just setting off 
he had been over-persuaded to show where he had 
buried the ashes of Hercules. He did not say one 
word, but stamped with his foot on the place, and 
an arrow fell out at the moment and pierced his 
heel. At any rate, he and the arrows were left 
behind, while the Greeks reached the coast of 
Troy. 

The augurs had declared that the first man who 
touched the shore would be the first to be killed. 



The Choice of Paris. 



87 



Achilles threw his shield before him, and leaped 
out of the ship upon that ; but Protesilaus leaped 
without so doing, and was slain almost instantly by 
the Trojans. When his wife Laodamia heard of 
his death, she grieved and pined so piteously that 
his spirit could not rest, and Mercury gave him 
leave to come back and spend three hours with her 
on earth. He came, but when she tried to embrace 
him she found that he Avas only thin air, which 
could not be grasped, and when the time was over 




GREEK SHIP 



he vanished from her sight. Then Laodamia made 
an image of him, and treated it as a god ; and 
when her father forbade her to do this, she leaped 
into the fire, and thus perished. 

The chief of the Greeks were Agamemnon, king 
of Mycenae, his brother Menelaus of Sparta, and 



88 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Achilles of iEgina, whose men were called Myrmi- 
dons, and said to be descended from ants. His 
friend, to whom he was devoted, was called Patro- 
clus. He was the most perfect warrior in the 
army, but Diomed the JEtolian came near him in 
daring, and Ajax of Salamis, son of Telamon, was 
the biggest and strongest man. His brother Teucer 
used to stand behind his shield and aim arrows at 
the Trojans. There was another Ajax, from Lo- 
cria, called after his father Oileus. The oldest 
man in the camp was Nestor, king of Pylos, who 
had been among the Argonauts, and had been a 
friend of Hercules, and was much looked up to. 
The wisest men were Ulysses of Ithaca, and Pala- 
medes, who is said to have invented the game of 
chess to amuse the warriors in the camp ; but Ulys- 
ses never forgave Palamedes for his trick on the 
shore at Ithaca, and managed to make him be sus- 
pected of secret dealings with the Trojans, and put 
to death. Each of these brought a band of fight- 
ing men, and they had their ships, which were not 
much more than large boats, drawn up high and 
dry on the shore behind the camp. They fought 
with swords and spears, which latter were thrown 
with the hand. Some had bows and arrows, and 
the chiefs generally went to battle in a chariot, an 



The Choice of Hercules. 89 

open car drawn by two horses, and driven by some 
trusty friend, who held the horses while the chief 
stood up and launched spear after spear among the 
enemy. There was no notion of mercy to the fallen ; 
prisoners were seldom made, and if a man was 
once down, unless his friends could save him, he 
was sure to be killed. 

During the first eight j^ears of the war we do 
not hear much of the Greeks. They seem to have 
been taking* and wasting the cities belonging to the 
Trojans all round the country. The home of An- 
dromache, Hector's good and loving wife, was de- 
stroyed, and her parents and brothers killed ; and 
Priam's cousin, JEneas was also driven in from 
Mount Ida, with his old father Anchises, and wife 
and little son. In the ninth }^ear of the war the 
Greeks drew up their forces round the walls of 
Troy itself, their last exploit having been the 
taking of the city of Chrysse, where they had gained 
a great deal of plunder. All captives were then 
made slaves, and in the division of the spoil a 
maiden named Briseis was given to Achilles, while 
Agamemnon took one called Chryseis, the daughter 
of Chryses, priest of Apollo. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE SIEGE OF TROY. 



WE have come to the part of this siege which 
is told us in the Iliad, the oldest poem we 
know, except the Psalms, and one of the very 
finest. It begins by telling how Chryses prayed to 
Apollo to help him to get back his daughter, and 
Apollo sent a plague upon the Greeks in their 
camp. Calchas told them it was because of Chry- 
seis, and they forced Agamemnon to give her safely 
back to her father. His pride, however, was hurt, 
and he said he must have Briseis in her stead, and 
sent and took her from Achilles. In his wrath 
Achilles declared he would not fight any more for 
the Greeks, and his mother Thetis begged Jupiter 
to withdraw his aid from them likewise, that they 
might feel the difference. 

The Trojans went out to attack them, and when 




HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. 



The Siege of Troy. 93 

they were drawn up in battle array, old Priam 
made Helen come and sit by him on the battlements 
over the gate-way, to tell him who all the chiefs 
were. It was proposed that, instead of causing the 
death of numbers who had nothing to do with the 
quarrel, Menelaus and Paris should fight hand-to- 
hand for Helen ; and they began ; but as soon as 
Venus saw that her favorite Paris was in danger, 
she came in a cloud, snatched him away, and set him 
down in Helen's chamber, where his brother Hec- 
tor found him reclining at his ease, on coming to 
upbraid him for keeping out of the battle, where so 
many better men than he were dying for his crime. 
Very different were Hector's ways. He parted 
most tenderly with his wife Andromache, and his 
little son Astyanax, who was so young that he 
clung crying to his nurse, afraid of his father's tall 
helmet and horse-hair crest. Hector took the hel- 
met off before he lifted the little one in his arms 
and prayed to the gods for him 

Each day the Trojans gained, though one day 
Jupiter forbade any of the gods or goddesses to 
interfere, and on another he let them all go down 
and fight for their own parties. He was himself 
impartial ; but one day Juno managed to borrow 
Venus' girdle, which made her so charming that 



94 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

nothing could resist her, and she lulled him to 
sleep. During that time the Greeks prevailed 
again, but this only lasted till Jupiter awoke, and 
then the Trojans gained great success. All the 
Greek heroes were disabled one after another, and 
Hector and his men broke through the rampart 
they had made round their camp, and were about 
to burn the ships, when Patroclus, grieved at find- 
ing all his friends wounded, came to Achilles with 
an entreaty that he might be allowed to send out 
the Myrmidons, and try to save the ships. Achilles 
consented, and dressed Patroclus in his own armor. 
Then all gave way before the fresh Myrmidons led 
by Patroclus, and the Trojans were chased back to 
their walls ; but as Hector made a last stand before 
the gates, Apollo, who loved Troy because he had 
built the walls, caused a sunbeam to strike on 
Patroclus and make him faint, so that Hector easily 
struck him down and killed him. Then there was 
a desperate fight over his body. The Trojans did 
get the armor off it, but the Greeks saved the 
corpse, and had almost reached the rampart, when 
the Trojans came thicker and more furiously on 
them, and were almost bursting in, when Achilles, 
hearing the noise, came out, and, standing on the 
rampart just as he was, all unarmed, gave a ter- 



The Siege of Troy. 95 

rible thundering shout, at which the Trojans were 
filled with dismay, and fled back in confusion, 
while the corpse of Patroclus was borne into the 
tent, where Achilles mourned over it, with many 
tears and vows of vengeance against Hector. 

His mother Thetis came from the sea and wept 
with him, and thence she went to Vulcan, from 
whom she obtained another beautiful suit of armor, 
with a wondrous shield, representing Greek life in 
every phase of war or peace ; and in this Achilles 
went forth again to the battle. He drove the 
Trojans before his irresistible might, came up with 
Hector, chased him round and round the walls of 
Troy, and at length came up with him and slew 
him. Then, when Patroclus had been laid on a 
costly funeral pile, Achilles dragged Hector's body 
at the back of his chariot three times round it. 
Further, in honor of his friend, he had games of 
racing in chariots and on foot, wrestling, boxing, 
throwing heavy stones, and splendidly rewarded 
those who excelled with metal tripods, weapons, 
and robes. 

But when poor old Priam, grieving that his son's 
corpse should lie unburiecl, thus hindering his 
shade from being at rest, came forth at night, in 
disguise, to beg it from Achilles, the hero received 



96 Young Folks' History of (jfreeee. 

the old man most kindly, wept at the thought of 
his own father Peleus, fed and warmed him, and 
sent home the body of Hector most honorably. 

Here ends the Iliad. It is from other poems 
that the rest of the history is taken, and we know 
that Achilles performed many more great exploits, 
until Paris was aided by Apollo to shoot an arrow 
into the heel which alone could be wounded, and 
thus the hero died. There was another great fight 
over his body, but Ajax and Ulysses rescued it at 
last ; Ajax bore it to the ships, and Ulysses kept 
back the Trojans. Thetis and all the Nereids and 
all the Muses came to mourn over him ; and when 
he was burnt in the funeral pile she bore away his 
spirit to the white island, while the Greeks raised 
a huge mound in his honor. She promised his 
armor to the Greek who had done most to rescue 
his corpse. The question lay between Ajax and 
Ulysses, and Trojan captives being appointed as 
judges, gave sentence in favor of Ulysses. Ajax 
was so grieved that he had a fit of frenzy, fancied 
the cattle were the Greeks who slighted him, killed 
whole flocks in his rage, and, when he saw what he 
had done, fell on his own sword and died. 

Having lost these great champions, the Greeks 
resolved to fetch Achilles' young son Pjorhus to 



The Siege of Troy. 97 

the camp, and also to get again those arrows of 
Hercules which Philoctetes had with him. Ulys- 
ses and Pyrrhus were accordingly sent to fetch 
him from his lonely island. They found him howl- 
ing with pain, but he would not hear of coming 
away with them. So Ulysses stole his quiver while 
he was asleep, but when he awoke and missed it 
his lamentations so moved young Pyrrhus that he 
gave them back ; and this so touched the heart of 
Philoctetes that he consented to return to the 
camp. There Machaon, the physician of the Greeks, 
healed his foot, and he soon after shot Paris with 
one of the arrows. 

Instead of now giving up Helen, Deiphobus and 
Helenus, the two next brothers, quarreled as to 
which should marry her, and when she was given 
to Deiphobus, Helenus was so angry that he went 
out and wandered in the forests of Mount Ida, 
where he was made prisoner by Ulysses, who con- 
trived to find out from him that Troy could never 
be taken while it had the Palladium within it. 
Accordingly, Ulysses and Diomed set out, and 
climbing over the wall by night, stole the wondrous 
image. While the Trojans were dismayed at the 
loss, the Greeks seemed to have changed their 
minds. They took ship and sailed awaj^, and all 

7 



98 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

the surviving Trojans, relieved from their siege, 
rushed down to the shore, where all they found 
was a monstrous wooden horse. While they were 
looking at it in wonder, a Greek came out of the 
rocks, and told them that his name was Sinon, and 
that he had been cruelly left behind by the Greeks, 
who had grown weary of the siege and gone home, 
but that if the wonderful horse were once taken 
into Troy it would serve as another Palladium. 
The priest of Neptune, Laocoon, did not believe 
the story, and declared that Sinon w^as a spy ; but 
he was cut short in his remonstrance by two huge 
serpents, which glided out of the sea and devoured 
him and his two sons. Cassandra, too, a daughter 
of Priam, who had the gift of prophecy, but was 
fated never to be believed, shrieked with despair 
when she saw the Trojans harnessing themselves 
to the horse to drag it into Troy, but nobody heed- 
ed her, and there was a great feast to dedicate it to 
Pallas. Helen perhaps guessed or knew what it 
meant, for at dark she walked round it, and called 
the names of Ulysses, and many other Greeks, in 
the voices of Penelope and the other wives at 
home. 

For indeed the horse was full of Greeks ; and at 
dark Sinon lighted a beacon as a signal to the rest, 



The Siege of Troy. 



99 



who were only waiting behind the isle of Tenedos. 
Then he let the others out of the horse, and 
slaughter and fire reigned throughout Troy. Men- 
elaus slew Deiphobus as he tried to rise from bed, 




THE LAOCOON. 



and carried Helen down to his ship. Poor old 
Priam tried to put on his armor and defend Hecuba 
and his daughters, but Pyrrhus killed him at the 
altar in his palace-court ; and iEneas, after seeing 



100 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

this, and that all was lost, hurried back to his own 
house, took his father Anchises on his back, and 
his little son lulus in one hand, his household gods 
in the other, and with his wife Creusa following, 
tried to escape from the burning city with his own 
troop of warriors. All succeeded except poor 
Creusa, who was lost in the throng of terrified 
fugitives, and was never found again ; but JEneas 
found ships on the coast, and sailed safely away to 
Italy. 

All the rest of the Trojans were killed or made 
slaves. Ulysses killed Hector's poor little son, and 
Andromache became slave to young Pyrrhus. Cas- 
sandra clung to Pallas' statue, and Ajax Oileus, 
trying to drag her away, moved the statue itself — 
such an act of sacrilege that the Greeks had nearly 
stoned him on the spot — and Cassandra was given 
to Agamemnon. Polyxena, the youngest sister, 
was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and poor 
old Hecuba went mad with grief. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES. 

^ | ^HE overthrow of the temples at Troy was 
-*- heavily visited on the Greeks by the gods, 
and the disasters that befel Ulysses are the subject 
of another grand Greek poem called the Odyssey, 
from his right Greek name Odysseus. He was the 
special favorite of Pallas Athene, but she could 
not save him from many dangers. He had twelve 
ships, with which he set out to return to Ithaca ; 
but as he was doubling Cape Malea, one of the 
rugged points of the Peloponnesus, a great storm 
caught him, and drove him nine days westward, 
till he came to an island, where he sent three men 
to explore, but they did not return, and he found 
that this was the land of the lotus-eaters, a people 
who always lie about in a dreamy state of repose, 
and that to taste the food drives away all remem- 

101 



102 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

brance of home and friends. He was obliged to 
drag his men away by force, and bind them to the 
benches. The lotus-bean, or jujube, is really eaten 
in Africa, but not with these effects. 

Next they came to another island, where there 
was a bay with rocks around, with goats leaping on 
them. Here Ulysses left eleven ships, and sailed 
with one to explore the little islet opposite. Land- 
ing with his men, he entered an enormous cavern, 
well stored with milk and cream, and with rows of 
cheeses standing on the ledges of rock. While the 
Greeks were regaling themselves, a noise was 
heard, and great flocks of sheep and goats came 
bleating in. Behind them came a giant, with a fir 
tree for a staff, and only one eye in the middle of 
his forehead. He was Polyphemus, one of the 
Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of Vulcan. 
He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and 
Ulysses told him that they were shipwrecked 
sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the name 
of the gods. Polyphemus laughed at this, saying 
he was stronger than the gods, and did not care for 
them ; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks on the 
floor, he ate them up at once ; after which he 
closed up the front of the cave with a monstrous 
rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and began to 



The Wanderings of Ulysses. 103 

milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, 
and fell asleep on the ground. Ulysses thought of 
killing him at once, but recollected that the stone 
at the mouth of the cave would keep him captive 
if the giant's strength did not move it, and ab- 
stained. In the morning the Cyclops let out his 
flocks, and then shut the Greeks in with a stone ; 
but he left his staff behind, and Ulysses hardened 
the top of this in the fire. A skin of wine had 
been brought from the ships, and when Polyphe- 
mus came home in the evening, and had devoured 
two more Greeks, Ulysses offered it to him. It 
was the first wine he had tasted, and he was in rap- 
tures with it, asking his guest's name as he pledged 
him. "No-man," replied Ulysses, begging again 
for mercy. " This will I grant," said the Cyclops, 
" in return for thy gift. No-man shall be the last 
whom I devour." He drank up the whole skin of 
wine, and went to sleep. Then Ulysses and four 
of his companions seized the staff, and forced its 
sharpened top into the Cyclops' eye, so that he 
awoke blind, and roaring so loud that all the other 
Cyclops awoke, and came calling to know who had 
hurt him. " No-man," shouted back Polyphemus ; 
and they, thinking it was only some sudden illness, 
went back to their caves. Meanwhile, Ulysses 



104 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

was fastening the remaining Greeks under the 
bellies of the sheep and goats, the wool and hair 
hanging over them. He himself clung on under 
the largest goat, the master of the herd. When 
morning came, the Heatings of the herds caused 
the blind giant to rouse himself to roll back the 
stone from the entrance. He laid his hand on each 
beast's back, that his guests might not ride out on 
them, but he did not feel beneath, though he kept 
back Ulysses' goat for a moment caressing it, and 
saying, " My pretty goat, thou seest me, but I can- 
not see thee." 

As soon as Ulysses was safe on board ship, and 
had thrust out from land, he called back his real 
name to the giant, whom he saw sitting on the 
stone outside his cave. Polyphemus and the other 
Cyclops returned by hurling rocks at the ship, but 
none touched it, and Ulysses reached his fleet 
safely. This adventure, however, had made Nep- 
tune his bitter foe, and how could he sail on Nep- 
tune's realm ? 

However, he next came to the Isle of the Winds, 
which floated about in the ocean, and was sur- 
rounded by a brazen wall. Here dwelt iEolus, 
with his wife and sons and daughters, and Ulysses 
stayed with him a whole month. At the end of it, 



The Wanderings of Ulysses. 105 

JEolus gave Ulysses enough of each wind, tied up 
in separate bags, to take him safely home ; but his 
crew fancied there was treasure in them, and while 
he was asleep opened all the bags at once, and the 
winds bursting out tossed all the ships, and then 
carried them back to the island, where JEolus de- 
clared that Ulysses must be a wretch forsaken of 
the gods, and would give him no more. 

Six days later the fleet came to another cannibal 
island, that of the Lsestrygonians, where the crews 
of all the ships, except that of the king himself, 
were caught and eaten up, and he alone escaped, 
and, still proceeding westward, came to another 
isle, belonging to Circe, the witch goddess, daughter 
to Helios. The comrades of Ulysses, whom he had 
sent to explore, did not return, and he was himself 
landing in search of them, when Mercury appeared 
to him, and warned him that, if he tasted of the 
boAvl she would offer him, he would, like his friends, 
be changed by her into a hog, unless he fortified 
himself with the plant named moly — a white- 
flowered, starry sort of garlic, which Mercury gave 
him. Ulysses then made his way through a wood 
to the hall where Circe sat, waited on by four 
nymphs. She received him courteously, offered 
him her cup, and so soon as he had drunk of it she 



106 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

struck him with her wand, and bade him go grunt 
with his fellows; but as, thanks to the moly, he 
stood unchanged before her, he drew his sword and 
made her swear to do him no hurt, and to restore 
his companions to their proper form. Then they 
made friends, and he stayed with her a whole year. 
She told him that he was fated not to return home 
till he had first visited the borders of the world of 
Pluto, and consulted Tiresias, the blind prophet. 
She told him what to do, and he went on beyond 
the Mediterranean into the outer ocean, to the land 
of gloom, where Helios, the sun, does not shine. 
Here Ulysses dug a pit, into which he poured 
water, wine, and the blood of a great black ram, 
and there flocked up to him crowds of shades, 
eager to drink of it, and to converse with him. All 
his own friends were there — Achilles, Ajax, and, 
to his surprise, Agamemnon — all very melancholy, 
and mourning for the realms of day. His mother 
who had died of grief for his absence, came and 
blessed him ; and Tiresias warned him of Neptune's 
anger, and of his other dangers, ere he should 
return to Ithaca. Terror at the ghastly troop over- 
came him at last, and he fled and embarked again, 
saw Circe once more, and found himself in the sea 
by which the Argo had returned. The Sirens' Isle 



The Wanderings of Ulysses. 107 

was near, and to prevent the perils of their song, Ulys- 
ses stopped the ears of all his crew with wax, and 
though he left his own open, bade them lash him to 
the mast, and not heed all his cries and struggles to 
be loosed. Thus he was the only person who ever 
heard the Sirens' song and lived. Scylla and 




ULYSSES TIED TO THE MAST. 



Charybdis came next, and, being warned by Pallas, 
he thought it better to lose six than all, and so 
went nearest to the monster, whose six mouths at 
once fell on six of the crew, and tore them away. 
The isle of Trinacria was pasture for the 360 cattle 
of Helios, and both Tiresias and Circe had warned 
Ulysses that they must not be touched. He would 



108 Young Folks 7 History of Greece. 

fain have passed it by, but his crew insisted on 
landing for the night, making oath not to touch 
the herds. At dawn such a wind arose that they 
could not put to sea for a month, and after eating 
up the stores, and living on birds and fish, they 
took some of the oxen when Ulysses was asleep, 
vowing to build a temple to Helios in recompense. 
They were dismayed at seeing the hides of the 
slain beasts creep on the ground, and at hearing 
their flesh low as it boiled in the cauldron. Indeed, 
Helios had gone to Jupiter, and threatened to stop 
his chariot unless he had his revenge ; so as soon as 
the wretched crew embarked again a storm arose, 
the ship was struck by lightning, and Ulysses alone 
was saved from the wreck, floating on the mast. 
He came back past Scylla and Charybdis, and, 
clinging to the fig tree which hung over the latter, 
avoided being sucked into the whirlpool, and by- 
and-by came to land in the island of the nymph 
Calypso, who kept him eight years, but he pined 
for home all the time, and at last built a raft on 
which to return. Neptune was not weary of per- 
secuting him, and raised another storm, which shat- 
tered the raft, and threw Ulysses on the island of 
Scheria. Here the king's fair daughter Nausicaa, 
going down to the stream with her maidens to 




ULYSSES BENDS HIS BOW. 



The Wanderings of Ulysses. Ill 

wash their robes, met the shipwrecked stranger, and 
took him home. Her father feasted him hospitably, 
and sent him home in a ship, which landed him on 
the coast of Ithaca fast asleep, and left him there. 
He had been absent twenty years ; and Pallas 
further disguised his aspect, so that he looked like 
a beggar, when, in order to see how matters stood, 
he made his way first to the hut of his trusty old 
swineherd Euma3us. 

Nothing could be worse than things were. More 
than a hundred young chiefs of the Ionian isles 
had taken possession of his palace, and were daily 
revelling there, thrusting his son Telemachus aside, 
and insisting that Penelope should choose one of 
them as her husband. She could only put them 
off by declaring she could wed no one till she had 
finished the winding-sheet she was making for old 
Laerses, her father-in-law; while to prevent its 
coming to an end she undid by night whatever she 
wove by day. Telemachus had gone to seek his 
father, but came home baffled to Eumseus' hut, 
and there was allowed to recognize Ulysses. But 
it was as a beggar, broken-down, and foot-sore, that 
Ulysses sought his palace, and none knew him 
there but his poor dog Argus, who licked his 
feet, and died for joy. The suitors, in their pride, 



112 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

made game of the poor stranger, but Penelope sent 
for him, in case he brought news of her husband. 
Even to her he told a feigned story, but she bade 
the old nurse Euryclea take care of him, and wash 
his feet. While doing so, the old woman knew 
him by a scar left by the tusk of a wild boar long 
ago, and Ulysses could hardly stifle her cry of joy ; 
but she told him all, and who could be trusted 
among the slaves. The plans were fixed. Tele- 
machus, with much difficulty, persuaded his mother 
to try to get rid of the suitors by promising to wed 
him only who could bend Ulysses' bow. One after 
another tried in vain, and then, amid their sneers, 
the beggar took it up, and bent it easily, hit the 
mark, and then aimed it against them ! They 
were all at the banquet-table in the hall. Eumseus 
and the other faithful servants had closed all the 
doors, and removed all the arms, and there was a 
terrible slaughter both of these oppressors and the 
servants who had joined with them against their 
queen and her son. 

After this, Ulysses made himself known to his 
wife, and visited his father, who had long retired to 
his beautiful garden. The kindred of the suitors 
would have made war on him, but Pallas pacified 



Tlxe Wanderings of Ulysses. 



113 



them, and the Odyssey leaves him to spend his old 
age in Ithaca, and die a peaceful death. He was 
just what the Greeks thought, a thoroughly brave 
and wise man ; for they had no notion that there 
was any sin in falsehood and double-dealing. 




CHAPTER XL 

THE DOOM OF THE ATKIDES. 

YOU remember that Ulysses met Agamemnon 
among the other ghosts. The King of Men, 
as the Iliad calls him, had vast beacons lighted 
from isle to isle, and from cape to cape, to announce 
that Troy was won, and that he was on his way 
home, little knowing what a welcome was in store 
for him. 

His wife, Clytemnestra had forgiven him for the 
loss of Iphigenia, and had listened to his cousin 
jEgisthus, who wanted to marry her. She came 
forth and received Agamemnon with apparent joy, 
but his poor captive Cassandra wailed aloud, and 
would not cross the threshold, saying it streamed 
with blood, and that this was a house of slaughter. 
No one listened to her, and Agamemnon was led to 

the bath to refresh himself after the journey. A 

114 



The Doom of the Atrides. 115 

new embroidered robe lay ready for him, but the 
sleeves were sewn up at the wrists, and while he 
could not get his hands free, ^Egisthus fell on him 
and slew him, and poor Cassandra likewise. 

His daughter Electra, fearing that her young 
brother Orestes would not be safe since he was the 
right heir of the kingdom, sent him secretly awa}^ 
to Phocis, where the king bred him up with his 
own son Pylades, and the two youths loved each 
other as much as Achilles and Patroclus had done. 

It was the bounden duty of a son to be the 
avenger of his father's blood, and after eight years, 
as soon as Orestes was a grown warrior, he went 
with his friend in secret to Mycense, and offered a 
lock of his hair on his father's tomb. Electra, 
coming out with her offerings, found these tokens, 
and knew that he was near. He made himself 
known, and she admitted him into the house, where 
he fulfilled his stern charge, and killed both Cly- 
temnestra and JEgisthus, then celebrated their 
funeral rites with all due solemnity. 

This was on the very day that Menelaus and 
Helen returned home. They had been shipwrecked 
first in Egypt, where they spent eight years, and 
then were held by contrary winds on a little isle on 
the coast of Egypt, where they would have been 



116 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

starved if Menelaus had not managed to capture 
the old sea-god Proteus, when he came up to pas- 
ture his flock of seals on the beach, and holding 
him tight, while he changed into every kind of 
queer shape, forced him at last to speak. By Pro- 
teus 9 advice, Menelaus returned to Egypt, and 
made the sacrifices to the gods he had forgotten 
before, after which he safely reached Sparta, on the 
day of Clytemnestra's obsequies. Just as they 
were ended, the Furies, the avengers of crime, fell 
upon Orestes for having slain his mother. He fled 
in misery from Mycenae, which Menelaus took 
into his own hands, while the wretched Orestes 
went from place to place, still attended and com- 
forted by faithful Pylacles, but he never tried to 
rest without being again beset by the Furies. At 
last Apollo, or the oracle at Delphi, sent him to 
take his trial at the court of justice at Athens, 
called Areopagus, Ares' (or Mars') Hill, after 
which the oracle bade him fetch the image of Diana 
from Tauris, marry his cousin Hermione, the 
daughter of Menelaus and Helen, and recover his 
father's kingdom. 

Pallas Athene came down to preside at Areop- 
agus, and directed the judges to pronounce that, 
though the slaying of a mother was a fearful crime, 



The Doom of the Atrides. 117 

yet it was Orestes' duty to avenge his father's 
death. He was therefore acquitted, and purified 
by sacrifice, and was no more haunted by the 
Furies, while with Pylades he sailed for Tauris. 
In that inhospitable place it was the custom to 
sacrifice all strangers to Diana, and, as soon as they 
had landed, Orestes and Pylades were seized, and 
taken to the priestess at the temple, that their hair 
might be cut and their brows wreathed for the 
sacrifice. The priestess was no other that Iphi- 
genia, who had been snatched away from Aulis, 
and, when she and the brother, whom she had left 
an infant, found each other out, she contrived to 
leave the temple by night, carrying the image of 
Diana with her. They went to Delphi together, 
and there Iphigenia met Electra, who had heard a 
false report that her beloved Orestes had been 
sacrificed by the priestess of Tauris, and was just 
going to tear out her eyes, when Orestes appeared, 
and the sisters were made known to each other. 
A temple was built for the image near Marathon, 
in Attica, and Iphigenia spent the rest of her life as 
priestess there. Orestes, in the meantime, married 
Hermione — after, as some say, killing Pyrrhus, 
the son of Achilles, to whom she was either prom- 
ised or married — and reigned over both Mycenae 



118 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

and Sparta until the hundred years' truce with the 
Heracleids, or grandsons of Hercules, had come to 
an end, and they returned with a party of Dorians 
and conquered Sparta, eighty years after the Trojan 
war. 

This is the last of the events of the age of heroes, 
when so much must be fable, though there may be 
a germ of historical truth which no one can make 
out among the old tales that had come from the 
East, and the like of which may be found among 
the folk-lore of all nations. These are the most 
famous of the stories, because they joined all 
Greeks together, and were believed in by all 
Greeks alike in their main circumstances ; but 
every state had its own story, and one or two may 
be told before we end this chapter of myths, be- 
cause they are often heard of, and poetry has been 
written about some of them. 

At Thebes, in Bceotia, the king, Laius, was told 
that his first child would be his death. So as soon 
as it was born he had its ancles pierced, and put 
out in a wood to die ; but it was found by a shep- 
herd, and brought to Corinth, where the queen 
named it CEdipus, or Swollen Feet, and bred it up 
as her own child. Many years later OEdipus set 
out for the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was ; but 



The Doom of the Atrides. 119 

all the answer he received was that he must shun 
his native land, for he would be the slayer of his 
own father. He therefore resolved not to return to 
Corinth, but on his journey he met in a narrow 
pass with a chariot going to Delphi. A quarrel 
arose, and in the fight that followed he slew the 
man to whom the chariot belonged, little knowing 
that it was Laius, his own father. 

He then went on through Boeotia. On the top 
of a hill near Thebes sat a monster called the 
Sphinx, with a woman's head, a lion's body, and an 
eagle's wings. She had been taught riddles by the 
Muses, and whoever failed to answer them she de- 
voured upon the spot. Whoever could answer her 
was to marry the king's sister, and share the king- 
dom. (Edipus went bravely up to her, and heard 
her question, " What is the animal that is at first 
four-legged, then two-legged, then three-legged?" 
"Man," cried (Edipus. "He creeps as a babe on 
all-fours, walks upright in his prime, and uses a 
staff in his old age." Thereupon the Sphinx turned 
to stone, and (Edipus married the princess, and 
reigned many years, till there was a famine and 
pestilence, and the oracle was asked the cause. It 
answered that the land must be purified from the 
blood of Laius. Only then did (Edipus find out 



120 Young Folks' History of Gcreeee. 

that it was Laius whom he had slain ; and then, by 
the marks on his ancles, it was proved that he was 
the babe who had been exposed, so that he had 
fulfilled his fate, and killed his own father. To 
save Thebes, he left the country, with his eyes put 
out by way of expiation, and wandered about, only 
attended by his faithful daughter Antigone, till he 
came to Athens, where, like Orestes, he was shel- 
tered, and allowed to expiate his crime. After his 
death, Antigone came back to Thebes, where her 
two brothers Eteocles and Polynices had agreed to 
reign each a year by turns ; but when Eteocles 5 
year was over he would not give up to his brother 
and Polynices, in a rage, collected friends, among 
whom were six great chiefs, and attacked ThebeSo 
In the battle called "the Seven Chiefs against 
Thebes," all were slain, and Eteocles and Polynices 
fell by each other's hands. Their uncle Creon for- 
bade that the bodies of men who had so ruined 
their country should receive funeral honors from 
anyone on pain of death, thus condemning their 
shades to the dreary flitting about on the banks of 
the Styx, so much dreaded. But their sister Anti- 
gone, the noblest woman of Greek imagination, 
dared the peril, stole forth at night, and gave 
burial alone to her two brothers. She w^as found 



The Doom of the Atrides. 121 

out, and put to death for her sisterly devotion, 
though Oreon's own son killed himself for grief and 
love of her. This happened in the generation 
before the Trojan war, for Tydeus, the father of 
Diomed, was one of the seven chiefs. 

Macedon, the country northward of Greece, had 
one very droll legend. Midas, king of the Bryges, 
at the foot of Mount Bermion, had a most beautiful 
garden, full of all kinds of fruit. This was often 
stolen, until he watched, and found the thief was 
old Silenus, the tutor of Bacchus. Thereupon he 
filled with wine the fount where Silenus was used 
to drink after his feast, and thus, instead of going 
away, the old god fell asleep, and Midas caught 
him, and made him answer all his questions. One 
was, " What is the best for man?" and the answer 
was very sad, " What is best for man is never to 
have been born. The second best is to die as soon 
as may be." At last Silenus was released, on con- 
dition that he would grant one wish, and this was 
that all that Midas touched should turn to gold ; 
and so it did, clothes, food, and everything the 
king took hold of became solid gold, so that he 
found himself starving, and entreated that the gift 
might be taken away. So he was told to bathe in 
the river Pactolus, in Lydia, and the sands became 



122 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

full of gold dust ; but, in remembrance of his folly, 
his ears grew long like those of a donkey. He hid 
them by wearing a tall Phrygian cap, and no one 
knew of them but his barber, who was told he 
should be put to death if ever he mentioned these 
ears. The barber was so haunted by the secret, 
that at last he could not help relieving himself, by 
going to a clump of reeds and whispering into them, 
"King Midas has the ears of an ass;" and when- 
ever the wind rustled in the reeds, those who went 
by might always hear them in turn whisper to one 
another, "King Midas has the ears of an ass." 
Some accounts say that it was for saying that Pan 
was a better musician than Apollo that Midas had 
his ass's ears, and that it was Lyclia of which he 
was king ; and this seems most likely, for almost as 
many Greeks lived in the borders of Asia Minor 
as lived in Greece itself, and there were many 
stories of the hills, cities and rivers there, but I 
have only told 3^011 what is more needful to be 
known — not, of course, to be believed, but to be 
known. 



CHAPTER XII. 



AFTER THE HEROIC AGE. 



ALL these heroes of whom we have been tell- 
ing lived, if they lived at all, about the time 
of the Judges of Israel. Troy is thought to have 
been taken at the time that Saul was reigning in 
Israel, and there is no doubt that there once was a 
city between Mount Ida and the iEgeaii Sea, for 
quantities of remains have been dug up, and among 
them many rude earthenware images of an owl, the 
emblem of Pallas Athene, likenesses perhaps of the 
Palladium. Hardly anything is told either false or 
true of Greece for three hundred years after this 
time, and when something more like history begins 
we find that all Greece, small as it is, was divided 
into very small states, each of which had a chief 
city and a government of its own, and was gene- 
rally shut in from its neighbors by mountains or by 
123 



124 Young Folks' History of Grreeee. 

sea. There were the three tribes, Ionian, Dorian, 
and iEolian, dwelling in these little states, and, 
though they often quarreled among themselves, all 
thinking themselves one nation, together with their 
kindred in the islands of the iEgean, on the coasts 
of Asia, and also in Sicily and Southern Italy, 
which was sometimes called the Greater Greece. 

Some time between the heroic age and the his- 
torical time, there had been a great number of songs 
and verses composed telling of the gods and heroes. 
Singers and poets used to be entertained by the 
kings, and sometimes to wander from one place to 
another, welcomed by all, as they chanted to the 
harp or the lyre the story of the great forefathers 
of their hosts, especially when they had all joined 
together, as in the hunt of the great boar of Caly- 
don, in the voyage for the Golden Fleece, and, 
above all, in the Siege of Troy. The greatest of 
all these singers was the blind poet Homer, whose 
songs of the wrath of Achilles and the wanderings 
of Ulysses were loved and learnt by everyone. 
Seven different cities claimed to be his birth-place, 
but no one knows more about him than that he 
was blind — not even exactly when he lived — but 
his poems did much to make the Greeks hold to- 
gether. 



After the Heroic Age. 125 

And so did their religion.' Everybody sent to 
ask questions of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, 
and there really were answers to them, though no 
one can tell by what power. And at certain times 
there were great festivals at certain shrines. One 
was at Olympia, in Elis, where there was a great 
festival every five years. It was said that Hercu- 
les, when a little boy, had here won a foot race 
with his brothers, and when the Heracleids re- 
turned to Sparta they founded a feast, with games 
for all the Greeks to contend in. There were 
chariot races, horse races, foot races, boxing and 
wrestling matches, throwing weights, playing with 
quoits, singing and reciting of poems. The win- 
ner was rewarded with a wreath of bay, of pine, of 
parsley, or the like, and he wore such an one as 
his badge of honor for the rest of his life. Nothing 
was thought more of than being first in the Olym- 
pic games, and the Greeks even came to make them 
their measure of time, saying that any event hap- 
pened in such and such a year of such an Olym- 
piad. The first Olmypiad they counted from 
was the year 776 B.C., that is, before the coming 
of our blessed Lord. There were other games 
every three years, which Theseus was said to have 
instituted, on the isthmus of Corinth, called the 



126 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Isthmean Games, and others in two different 
places, and no honor was more highly esteemed 
than success in these. 

There were also councils held of persons chosen 
from each tribe, called Amphictyons, for arranging 
their affairs, both religious and worldly, and one 
great Amphictyonic council, which met near Del- 
phi, to discuss the affairs of all Greece. In truth, 
all the great nations who long ago parted in Asia 
have had somewhat the same arrangement. A 
family grew first into a clan, then into a tribe, then 
into a nation, and the nation that settled in one 
country formed fresh family divisions of clans, 
tribes, and families. At first the family of a father 
would take council with the sons, the head of a 
clan with the fathers of families, the chief of a tribe 
with the heads of clans, and as these heads of 
clans grew into little kings, the ablest of them 
would lead the nation in time of war, as Agamem- 
non did the chiefs against Troy. However, the 
Greeks seem for the most part, between the heroic 
and the historical ages, to have dropped the king 
or chief of each state, and only to have managed 
them by various councils of the chief heads of 
families, who were called aristoi, the best, while 
those who were not usually called into council, 




DIAGORAS AND HIS SONS. 



After the Heroic Age. 1 29 

though they too were free, and could choose their 
governors, and vote in great matters, were termed 
demos, the people. This is why we hear of aris- 
tocracy and democracy. Under these freemen 
were the people of the country they had conquered, 
or any slaves they had bought or taken captive, or 
strangers who had come to live in the place, and 
these had no rights at all. 

Greek cities were generally beautiful places, in 
valleys between the hills and the sea. They were 
sure to have several temples to the gods of the 
place. These were colonnades of stone-pillars, 
upon steps, open all round, but with a small dark 
cell in the middle, which was the shrine of the god, 
whose statue, and carvings of wdiose adventures, 
adorned the outside. There was an altar in the 
open-air for sacrifices, the flesh of which was after- 
wards eaten. In the middle of a town was always 
a market-place, which served as the assembling- 
place of the people, and it had a building attached 
to it where the fire of Vesta was never allowed to 
go out. The charge of it was given to the best 
men who could be found ; and when a set of cit- 
izens went forth to make a new home or colony in 
Asia, Sicily, or Italy, they always took brands 
from this fire, guarded them carefully in a censer, 



130 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



and lighted their altar-fires therefrom when they 
settled down. 

These cities were of houses built round paved 
courts. The courts had generally a fountain in the 
middle, and an altar to the hero forefather of the 
master, where, before each meal, offerings were 
made and wine poured out. The rooms were very 
small, and used for little but sleeping ; and the 




GREEK INTERIOR. 



men lived chiefly in the cloister or pillared walks 
round the court. There was a kind of back court 
for the women of the famify, who did not often 
appear in the front one, though they were not shut 
up like Eastern women. Most Greeks had farms, 
which they worked by the help of their slaves, 



After the Heroic Age. 



131 



and whence came the meat, corn, wine, and milk 
that maintained the family. The women spun the 
wool of the sheep, wove and embroidered it, making 
for the men short tunics reaching to the knee, 
with a longer mantle for dig- 
nity or for need ; and for 
themselves long robes reach- 
ing to the feet — a modest and 
graceful covering — but leav- 
ing the arms bare. Men cut 
their hair close ; women folded 
their tresses round their heads 
in the simplest and most be- 
coming manner that has yet 
been invented. The feet were 
bare, but sandalled, and the 
sandals fastened with orna- 
mented thongs. Against the 
sun sometimes a sort of hat was worn, or the man- 
tle was put over the head, and women had thick 
veils wrapping them. 

In time of war the armor was a helmet with a 
horse-hair crest, a breast-plate on a leathern cuirass, 
which had strips of leather hanging from the lower 
edge as far down as the knee ; sometimes greaves 
to guard the leathern buskin ; a round shield of 




GREEK ROBE. 



132 Young Folks' History of Greece. 



leather, faced with metal, and often beautifully or- 
namented ; and also spears, swords, daggers, and 
sometimes bows and arrows. Chariots for Avar had 
been left off since the heroic times ; indeed Greece 
was so hilly that horses were not very much used 
in battle, though riding was part of the training of 
a Greek, and the Thessalian horses were much 
valued. Every state that had a sea-board had its 
fleet of galleys, with benches of oars ; but the 
Greek sailors seldom ventured out of sight of land, 
and all that Greece or Asia Minor did not produce 
was brought by the Phoenicians, the great sailors, 
merchants, and slave-dealers of the Old World. 
They brought Tyrian purple, gold 
of Ophir, silver of Spain, tin of 
Gaul and Britain, ivory from In- 
dia, and other such luxuries ; and 
they also bought captives in war, 
or kidnapped children on the coast, 
and sold them as slaves. Ulysses' 
faithful swineherd was such a slave, 
and of royal birth ; and such was 
the lot of many an Israelite child, 
for whom its parents' " eyes failed 
with looking and longing." 

The Greeks had more power of 




MALE COSTUME. 



After the Heroic Age. 133 

thought and sense of grace than any other people 
have ever had. They always had among them men 
seeking for truth and beauty. The truth-seekers 
were called philosophers, or lovers of wisdom. 
They were always trying to understand about God 
and man, and this world, and guessing at some- 
thing great, far beyond the stories of Jupiter ; and 
they used to gather young men round them under 
the pillared porches and talk over these thoughts, 
or write them in beautiful words. Almost all the 
sciences began with the Greeks ; their poems and 
their histories are wonderfully written ; and they 
had such great men among them that, though most 
of their little states were smaller than an ordinary 
English county, and the whole of them together 
do not make a country as large as Ireland, their 
history is the most remarkable in the world, ex- 
cept that of the -Jews. The history of the Jews 
shows what God does for men ; the history of 
Greece shows what man does left to himself. 

Greece was not so small as what is called 
Greece now in our modern maps. It reached 
northwards as far as the Volutza and Khimera 
mountains, beyond which lay Macedon, where the 
people called themselves Greeks, but were not quite 



134 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

accepted as such. In this peninsula, together with 
the Peloponnesus and the isles, there were twenty 
little states, making up Hellas, or Greece.* 

* Thessaly, Epirus, Acarnania, iEtolia, Doris, two Locrian 
states, Pliocis, Boeotia, Attica, Megaris — Corinth, Sicyon, 
Phliasia, Achaia, Elis, Arcadia, Argolis, Laconia, Messenia. 




A FUNERAL FEAST. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LYCUBGUS AND THE LAWS OF SPARTA. 
B.C. 884 — 668. 

YOU remember that after a hundred years the 
grandsons of Hercules returned, bringing 
with them their followers of Dorian birth, and 
conquered Laconia. These Dorians called them- 
selves Spartans, and were the rulers of the land, 
though the Greeks, who were there before them 
were also freemen, all but those of one city, called 
Helos, which revolted, and was therefore broken 
up, and the people were called Helots, and became 
slaves to the Spartans. One of the Spartan kings, 
sons of Hercules, had twin sons, and these two 
reigned together with equal rights, and so did their 
sons after them, so that there were always two 

kings at Sparta. One line was tailed the Agids, 
135 



136 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

from Agis, its second king ; the other Eurypontids, 
from Eurypon, its third king, instead of from the 
two original twins. 

The affairs of Sparta had fallen into a corrupt 
state by the third generation after Eurypon. The 
king of his line was killed in a quarrel, and his 
widow, a wicked woman, offered his brother Ly- 
curgus to kill her little new-born babe, if he would 
marry her, that she might continue to be queen. 
Lycurgus did not show his horror, but advised her 
to send the child alive to him, that he might 
dispose of it. So far from killing it was he, that 
he carried it at once to the council, placed it on 
the throne, and proclaimed it as Charilaus, king of 
Sparta. 

There were still murmurs from those who did 
not know that Lycurgus had saved the little boy's 
life. As he was next heir to the throne, it was 
thought that he must want to put Charilaus out of 
the way, so as to reign himself; so, having seen the 
boy in safe keeping, Lycurgus went on his travels 
to study the laws and ways of other countries. He 
visited Crete, and learnt the laws of Minos ; and, 
somewhere among the Greek settlements in Asia, 
he is said to have seen and talked to Homer, and 
heard his songs. He also went to Egypt, and after 



Lycurgus and the Laws of Sparta. 137 

that to India, where he may have learnt much from 
the old Brahmin philosophy ; and then, having 
made his plan, he repaired to Delphi, and prayed 
until he received answer from Apollo that his laws 
should be the best, and the state that obeyed them 
the most famous in Greece. He then went home, 
where he had been much missed, for his young 
nephew Charilaus, though grown to man's estate, 
was too weak and good-natured to be much obeyed, 
and there was a great deal of idleness, and glut- 
tony, and evil of all sorts prevailing. 

Thirty Spartans bound themselves to help Ly- 
curgus in his reform, and Charilaus, fancying it a 
league against himself, fled into the temple of 
Pallas, but his uncle fetched him out, and told him 
that he only wanted to make laws for making the 
Spartans great and noble. The rule was only for 
the real Dorian Spartans, the masters of the coun- 
try, and was to make them perfect warriors. First, 
then, he caused all the landmarks to be taken up, 
and the lands thrown into one, which he divided 
again into lots, each of which was large enough to 
yield 82 bushels of corn in a year, with wine and 
oil in proportion. Then, to hinder hoarding, he 
allowed no money to be used in the country but 
great iron weights, so that a small sum took up 



138 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

a great deal of room, and could hardly be carried 
about, and thus there was no purchasing Phoeni- 
cian luxuries ; nor was anyone to use gold or ivory, 
soft cushions, carpets, or the like, as being un- 
worthy of the race of Hercules. The whole Spartan 
nation became, in fact, a regiment of highly- 
disciplined warriors. They were to live together 
in public barracks, only now and then visiting 
their homes, and even when they slept there, being 
forbidden to touch food till they came to the 
general meal, which was provided for by con- 
tributions of meal, cheese, figs, and wine from each 
man's farm, and a little money to buy fish and 
meat ; also a sort of soup called black broth, which 
was so unsavory that nobody but a Spartan could 
eat it, because it was said they brought the best 
sauce, namely, hunger. A boy was admitted as 
soon as he was old enough, and was warned 
against repeating the talk of his elders, by being 
told on his first entrance, by the eldest man in the 
company, " Look you, sir ; nothing said here goes 
out there." Indeed no one used more words than 
needful, so that short, pithy sayings came to be 
called Laconic. To be a perfect soldier was the 
great point, so boys were taught that no merit was 
greater than bearing pain without complaint ; and 



Lycurgus and the Laws of Sparta. 139 

they carried this so far, that a boy who had 
brought a young wolf into the hall, hidden under 
his tunic, let it bite him even to death without a 
groan or cry. It is said that they were trained to 
theft, and were punished, not for the stealing, but 
the being found out. And, above all, no Spartan 
was ever to turn his back in battle. The mothers 
gave the sons a shield, with the words : " With it, 
or on- it." The Spartan shields were long, so that 
a dead warrior would be borne home on his shield ; 
but a man would not dare show his face again if he 
had thrown it away in flight. The women were 
trained to running, leaping, and throwing the bar, 
like the men, and were taught stern hardihood, so 
that, when their boys were offered to the cruel 
Diana, they saw them flogged to death at her altar 
without a tear. All the lives of the Spartans were 
spent in exercising for war, and the affairs of the 
state were managed not so much by the kings, but 
by five judges called Ephors, who were chosen 
every year, while the kings had very little power. 
They had to undergo the same discipline as the 
rest — dressed, ate, and lived like them ; but they 
were the high priests and chief captains, and made 
peace or war. 

At first Lycurgus' laws displeased some of the 



140 Young Folks' 1 History of Greece. 

citizens much, and, when he was proposing them, a 
young man named Alcander struck him on the 
face with his staff, and put out his eye. The 
others were shocked, and put Alcander into Ly- 
curgus' hands, to be punished as he thought fit. 
All Lycurgus did was to make him Avait upon him 
at meals, and Alcander was so touched and won 
over that he became one of his best supporters. 
After having fully taught Sparta to observe his 
rule, L} r curgus declared that he had another 
journey to take, and made the people swear to ob- 
serve his laws till he came back again. He never 
did come back, and they held themselves bound by 
them for ever. 

This story of Lycurgus has been doubted, but 
whether there were such a man or not, it is quite 
certain that these were the laws of Sparta in her 
most famous daj^s, and that they did their work ot 
making brave and hardy soldiers. The rule was 
much less strict in the camp than the city, and the 
news of a Avar was delightful to the Spartans as a 
holiday -time. All the hard work of their farms 
was done for them by the Helots, who were such a 
strong race that it was not easy to keep them down, 
although their masters were very cruel to them, 
often killing large numbers of them if they seemed 



Lycurgus and the Laws of Sparta. 141 

to be growing dangerous, always ill-treating them, 
and, it is said, sometimes making them drunk, that 
the sight of their intoxication might disgust the 
young Spartans. In truth, the whole Spartan 
system was hard and unfeeling, and much fitter to 
make fighting machines than men. 

The first great Spartan war that we know of was 
with their neighbors of Messenia, who stood out 
bravely, but were beaten, and brought down to the 
state of Helots in the year 723 B.C., all but a small 
band, who fled into other states. Among them 
was born a brave youth named Aristomenes, who 
collected all the boldest of his fellow-Messenians to 
try to save their country, and Argos, Arcadia, and 
Elis joined with them. Several battles were 
fought. One, which was called the battle of the 
Boars Pillar, was long sung about. An augur 
had told Aristomenes that under a tree sat the 
Spartan brothers Castor and Pollux, to protect 
their countrymen, and that he might not pass it ; 
but in the pursuit he rushed by it, and at that 
moment the shield was rent from him by an unseen 
hand. While he was searching for it, the Spartans 
(who do seem this time to have fled) escaped ; but 
Messene was free, and he was crowned with 
flowers by the rejoicing women. A command 



142 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

from Apollo made him descend into a cave, where 
he found his shield, adorned with the figure of an 
eagle, and much encouraged, he won another 
battle, and would have entered Sparta itself, had 
not Helen and her twin brothers appeared to warn 
him back. At last, however, the war turned 
against him, and in a battle on Laconian ground he 
was stunned by a stone, and taken prisoner, with 
50 more. They were all condemned to be thrown 
down a high rock into a pit. Everyone else was 
killed by the fall, but Aristomenes found himself 
unhurt, with sky above, high precipices on all 
sides, and his dead comrades under him. He 
wrapped himself in his cloak to wait for death, but 
on the third day he heard something moving, 
uncovered his face, and saw that a fox had crept in 
from a cavern at the side of the pit. He took hold 
of the fox's tail, crawled after it, and at last saw 
the light of day. He scraped the earth till the 
way was large enough for him to pass, escaped, and 
gathered his friends, to the amazement of the 
Spartans. Again he gained the victory, and a 
truce was made, but he was treacherously seized, 
and thrown into prison. However, this time he 
was set free by a maiden, whom he gave in mar- 
riage to his son. At last Eira, the chief city of 



Lyeurgus and the Laws of Sparta, 143 

Messenia, was betrayed by a foolish woman, while 
Aristomenes was laid aside by a wound. In spite 
of this, however, he fought for three days and nights 
against the Spartans, and at last drew up all the 
survivors — women as well as men — in a hollow 
square, with the children in the middle, and de- 
manded a free passage. The Spartans allowed 
these brave Messenians to pass untouched, and 
they reached Arcadia. There the dauntless Aristo- 
menes arranged another scheme for seizing Sparta 
itself, but it was betrayed, and failed. The Ar- 
cadians stoned the traitor, while the gentle Aristo- 
menes wept for him. The remaining Messenians 
begged him to lead them to a new country, but he 
would not leave Greece as long as he could strike 
a blow against Sparta. However, he sent his two 
sons, and they founded in Sicily a new Messene, 
which v/e still call Messina. Aristomenes waited 
in vain in Arcadia, till Damagetus, king of 
Rhodes, who had been bidden by an oracle to 
marry the daughter of the best of Greeks, asked 
for the daughter of Aristomenes, and persuaded 
him to finish his life in peace and honor in Rhodes. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SOLON AND THE LAWS OF ATHENS. 

B.C. 594 — 546. 

NORTH of the Peloponnesus, jutting out into 
the JEgean Sea, lay the rocky little Ionian 
state of Attica, with its lovely city, Athens. 
There was a story that Neptune and Pallas Athene 
had had a strife as to which should be the patron of 
the city, and that it was to be given to whichever 
should produce the most precious gift for it. 
Neptune struck the earth with his trident, and 
there appeared a war-horse'; but Pallas' touch 
brought forth an olive-tree, and this was judged 
the most useful gift. The city bore her name ; the 
tiny Athenian owl was her badge ; the very olive- 
tree she had bestowed was said to be that which 

grew in the court of the Acropolis, a sacred citadel 

144 



Solon and the Laws of Athens. 145 

on a rock above the city ; and near at hand was her 
temple, called the Parthenon, or Virgin's Shrine. 
Not far off was the Areopagus, a Hill of Ares, or 
Mars, the great place for hearing causes and doing 
justice ; and below these there grew up a city filled 
with men as brave as the Spartans, and far more 
thoughtful and wise, besides having a most perfect 
taste and sense of beauty. 

The Athenians claimed Theseus as their greatest 
king and first lawgiver. It was said that, when 
the Dorians were conquering the Peloponnesus, 
they came north and attacked Attica, but were told 
by an oracle that they never would succeed if they 
slew the king of Athens. Codrus, who was then 
king of Athens, heard of this oracle, and devoted 
himself for his country. He found that in battle 
the Dorians always forbore to strike him, and he 
disguised himself, went into the enemy's camp, 
quarreled with a soldier there, and thus caused 
himself to be killed, so as to save his country. He 
was the last king. The Athenians would not have 
anyone less noble to sit in his seat, and appointed 
magistrates called Archons in the stead of kings. 

Soon they fell into a state of misrule and dis- 
order, and they called on a philosopher named 

Draco to draw up laws for them. Draco's laws 

10 



146 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

were good, but very strict, and for the least crime 
the punishment was death. Nobody could keep 
them, so they were set aside and forgotten, and 
confusion grew worse, till another wise lawgiver 
named Solon undertook to draw up a fresh code of 
laws for them. 

Solon was one of the seven wise men of Greece, 
who all lived at the same time. The other six 
were Thales, Bion, Pittacus, Cloebulus, Chilo, and 
Periander. This last was called Tyrant of Corinth. 
When the ancient Greeks spoke of a tyrant they 
did not mean a cruel king so much as a king who 
had not been heir to the crown, but had taken to 
himself the rule over a free people. A very curious 
story belongs to Periander, for we have not quite 
parted with the land of fable. It is about the poet 
Arion, who lived chiefly with him at Corinth, but 
made one voyage to Sicily. As he was coming 
back, the sailors plotted to throw him overboard, 
and divide the gifts he was bringing with him. 
When he found they were resolved, he only begged 
to play once more on his lyre ; then standing on the 
prow, he played and sung a hymn calling the gods 
to his aid. So sweet were the sounds that shoals 
of dolphins came round the ship, and Arion, leaping 
from the prow, placed himself on the back of one, 



Solon and the Laivs of Athens. 147 

which bore him safely to land. Periander severely 
punished the treacherous sailors. Some think that 
this story was a Greek alteration of the history of 
Jonah, which might have been brought by the 
Phoenician sailors. 

Solon was Athenian by birth, and of the old 
royal line. He had served his country in war, and 
had traveled to study the habits of other lands, 
when the Athenians, wearied with the oppressions 
of the rich and great, and finding that no one 
attended to the laws of Draco, left it to him to 
form a new constitution. It would be of no use to 
try to explain it all. The chief thing to be remem- 
bered about it is, that at the head of the govern- 
ment were nine chief magistrates, who were called 
Archons, and who were changed every three years. 
To work with them there was a council of four 
hundred aristoi, or nobles ; but when war or peace 
was decided, the whole demos, or people, had to 
vote, according to their tribes ; and if a man was 
thought to be dangerous to the state, the demos, 
might sentence him to be banished. His name was 
written on an oyster shell, or on a tile, by those 
who wished him to be driven away, and these were 
thrown into one great vessel. If they amounted to 
a certain number, the man was said to be " ostra- 



148 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

cised," and forced to leave the city. This was 
sometimes done very unjustly, but it answered the 
purpose of sending away rich men who became 
overbearing, and kept tyrants from rising up. 
There were no unnatural laws as there were at 
Sparta ; people might live at home as they pleased ; 
but there were schools, and all the youths were to 
be taught there, both learning and training in all 
exercises. And whether it was from Solon's laws 
or their own character, there certainly did arise in 
Athens some of the greatest and noblest men of all 
times. 

After having set things in order, Solon is said to 
have been so annoyed by foolish questions on his 
schemes, that he went again on his travels. First 
he visited his friend Thales, at Miletus, in Asia 
Minor ; and, finding him rich and comfortable, he 
asked why he had never married. Thales made no 
answer then, but a few days later he brought in a 
stranger, who, he said, was just from Athens. 
Solon asked what was the news. " A great funeral 
was going on, and much lamentation," said the 
man. "Whose was it?" u He did not learn the 
name, but it was a young man of great promise, 
whose father was abroad upon his travels. The 
father was much famed for his wisdom and justice." 



Solon and the Laws of Athens. 149 

"Was it Solon?" cried the listener. "It was." 
Solon burst into tears, tore Iris hair, and beat Iris 
breast; but Thales took Iris hand, saying, "Now 
you see, O Solon, why I have never married, lest I 
should expose myself to griefs such as these ;" and 
then told him it was all a trick. Solon could not 
much have approved such a trick, for when Thespis, 
a great actor of plays, came to Athens, Solon asked 
him if he were not ashamed to speak so many false- 
hoods. Thespis answered that it was all in sport. 
"Ay," said Solon, striking his staff on the ground ; 
" but he that tells lies in sport will soon tell them in 
earnest." 

After this, Solon went on to Lydia. This was a 
kingdom of Greek settlers in Asia Minor, where 
flowed that river Pactolus, whose sands contained 
gold-dust, from King Midas' washing, as the story 
went. The king was Croesus, who was exceed- 
ingly rich and splendid. He welcomed Solon, and, 
after showing him all his glory, asked whom the 
philosopher thought the happiest of men. "An 
honest man named Tellus," said Solon, " who lived 
uprightly, was neither rich nor poor, had good chil- 
dren, and died bravely for his country." Croesus 
was vexed, but asked who was next happiest. 
"Two brothers named Cleobis and Bito," said 



150 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Solon, "who were so loving and dutiful to their 
mother, that, when she wanted to go to the temple 
of Juno, they yoked themselves to her car, and drew 
her thither ; then, having given this proof of their 
love, they lay down to sleep, and so died Avithout 
pain or grief." " And what do you think of me ? " 
said Croesus. "Ah!" said Solon, "call no man 
happy till he is dead." 

Croesus was mortified at such a rebuff to his 
pride, and neglected Solon. There was a clever 
crooked Egyptian slave at Croesus' court, called 
JEsop, who gave his advice in the form of the fables 
we know so well, such as the wolf and the lamb, 
the fox and the grapes, etc. ; though, as the Hin- 
doos and Persians have from old times told the 
same stories, it would seem as if iEsop only re- 
peated them, but did not invent them. When 
iEsop saw Solon in the background, he said, "Solon, 
visits to kings should be seldom, or else pleasant." 
" No," said Solon : " visits to kings should be sel- 
dom, or else profitable," as the courtly slave found 
them. jEsop came to a sad end. Croesus sent him 
to Delphi to distribute a sum of money among the 
poor, but they quarreled so about it that JEsop 
said he should take it back to the king, and give 



Solon and the Laivs of Athens. 151 

none at all ; whereupon the Delphians, in a rage, 
threw him off a precipice, and killed him. 

Croesus was just thinking of going to war with 
the great Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, 
the same who overcame Assyria, took Babylon, 
and restored Jerusalem, and who was now sub- 
duing Asia Minor. Croesus asked council of all 
the oracles, but first he tried their truth. He bade 
his messenger ask the oracle at Delphi what he was 
doing while they were inquiring. The answer 
was — 

"Lo, on my sense striketli the smell of a shell-covered tortoise 
Boiling on the fire, with the flesh of a lamb, in a cauldron; 
Brass is the vessel below, brass the cover above it." 

Croesus was really, as the most unlikely thing to 
be guessed, boiling a tortoise and a lamb together 
in a brazen vessel. Sure now of the truth of the 
oracle, he sent splendid gifts, and asked whether 
he should go to war with Cyrus. The answer was 
that, if he did, a mighty kingdom would be 
overthrown. 

He thought it meant the Persian, but it was his 
own. Lydia was overcome, Sardis, his capital, was 
burnt, and he was about to be slain, when remem- 
bering the warning, " Call no man happy till his 
death," he cried out, " O Solon, Solon, Solon ! " 



152 Young Folks* History of Grreeee. 

Cyrus heard him, and bade that he should be 
asked what it meant. The story so struck the 
great king, that he spared Croesus, and kept him 
as his adviser for the rest of his life. 





CRCESUS BEFORE CYRUS. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PISISTRATTJS AND HIS SONS. 

B.C. 558 — 499. 

AFTER all the pains that Solon had taken to 
guard the freedom of the Athenians, his 
system had hardly begun to work before his kins- 
man Pisistratus, who was also of the line of 
Codrus, overthrew it. First this man pretended to 
have been nearly murdered, and obtained leave to 
have a guard of fifty men, armed with clubs ; and 
with these he made everyone afraid of him, so that 
he had all the power, and became tyrant of Athens. 
He w T as once driven out, but he found a fine, tall, 
handsome woman, a flower-girl, in one of the vil- 
lages of Attica, dressed her in helmet and cuirass, 
like the goddess Pallas, and came into Athens in a 
chariot with her, when she presented him to the 

people as their ruler. The common people thought 
155 



156 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

she was their goddess, and Pisistratus had friends 
among the rich, so he recovered his power, and he 
did not, on the whole, use it badly. He made a 
kind law, decreeing that a citizen who had been 
maimed in battle should be provided for by the 
State, and he was the first Greek to found a 
library, and collect books — namely, manuscript 
upon the sheets of the rind of the Egyptian paper- 
rush, or else upon skins. He was also the first 
person to collect and arrange the poems of Homer, 
Everybody seems to have known some part by 
heart, but they were in separate songs, and Pisis- 
tratus first had them written down and put in 
order, after which no Greek was thought an edu- 
cated man unless he thoroughly knew the Iliad 
and Odyssey. 

• Pisistratus ruled for thirty-three years, and made 
the Athenians content, and when he died his sons 
Hippias and Hipparchus ruled much as he had 
clone, and gave no cause for complaint. One thing 
they did was to set up mile-stones all over the 
roads of Attica, each \vith a bust of Mercury on 
the top, and a wise proverb carved below the num- 
ber of the miles. But they grew proud and inso- 
lent, and one day a damsel of high family was 
rudely sent away from a solemn religious proces- 



Pisistratus and His Sons. 157 

sion, because Hipparchus had a quarrel with her 
brother Harmodius. This only made Harmodius 
vow vengeance, and, together with his friend Aris- 
togeiton, he made a plot with other youths for sur- 
rounding the two brothers at a great festival, when 
everyone carried myrtle-boughs, as well as their 
swords and shields. The conspirators had daggers 
hidden in the mrytle, and succeeded in killing 
Hipparchus, but Harmodius was killed on the spot, 
and Aristogeiton was taken and tortured to make 
him reveal his other accomplices, and so was a girl 
named Leoena, who was known to have been in. their 
secrets ; but she bore all the pain without a word, 
and when it was over she was found to have bitten 
off her tongue, that she might not betray her 
friends. Hippias kept up his rule for a few years 
longer, but he found all going against him, and 
that the people were bent on having Solon's sys- 
tem back ; so, fearing for his life, he sent away his 
wife and children, and soon followed them to Asia, 
B.C. 510. This — which is called the Expulsion of 
the Pisistraticls — was viewed by the Athenians as 
the beginning of their freedom. They paid yearly 
honors to the memory of the murderers Harmodius 
and Aristogeiton ; and as Leoena means a lioness, 



158 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

they honored that brave woman's constancy with 
the statue of a lioness without a tongue. 

Hippias wandered about for some time, and 
ended by going to the court of the king of Persia. 
Cyrus was now dead, after having established a 
great empire, which spread from the Persian Gulf 
to the shore of the Mediterranean, and had Baby- 
lon for one of its capitals. When Croesus was 
conquered, almost all the Greek colonies along the 
coast of Asia Minor likewise fell to the " Great 
King," as his subjects called him. The Persians 
adored the sun and fire as emblems of the great 
God, and thought the king himself had something 
of divinity in his person, and therefore, like most 
Eastern kings, he had entire power over his people 
for life or death ; they were all his slaves, and the 
only thing he could not do was to change his own 
decrees. 

After the Asian coast, the isles of the JEgean 
stood next in the way of the Persian. In the little 
isle of Samos lived a king called Polycrates, who 
had always been wealthy and prosperous. His 
friend Amasis, king of Egypt, told him that the 
gods were always jealous of the fortunate, and that, 
if he wished to avert some terrible disaster, he had 
better give up something very precious. Upon 



Plsistratus and His Sons. 159 

this Polycrates took off his beautiful signet ring 
and threw it into the sea ; but a few days later a 
large fish was brought as a present to the king, and 
when it was cut up the ring was found in its 
stomach, and restored to Polycrates. Upon this 
Amasis renounced his friendship, declaring that, 
as the gods threw back his offering, something 
dreadful was before him. The foreboding came 
sadly true, for the Persian satrap, or governor, of 
Sardis, being envious of Polycrates, declared that 
the Ionian was under the Great King's displeasure, 
and invited him to Sardis to clear himself. Poly- 
crates set off, but was seized as soon as he landed 
in Asia, and hung upon a cross. 

Amasis himself died just as the Persians were 
coming to attack Egypt, which Cyrus' son Camby- 
ses entirely conquered, and added to the Persian 
empire ; but Cambyses shortly after lost his senses 
and died, and there was an unsettled time before 
a very able and spirited king named Darius ob- 
tained the crown, and married Cyrus' daughter 
Atossa. Among the prisoners made at Samos 
there was a physician named Democedes, who was 
taken to Susa, Darius' capital. He longed to get 
home, and tried not to show how good a doctor he 
was ; but the king one day hurt his foot, and, when 



160 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

all the Persian doctors failed to cure him, he sent 
for Democedes, who still pretended to be no wiser 
until torture was threatened, and he was forced to 
try his skill. Darius recovered, made him great 
gifts, and sent him to attend his wives ; but Demo- 
cedes still pined for home, and managed to per- 
suade Atossa to beg the king to give her Spartan 
and Athenian slaves, and to tell him some great 
undertaking was expected from him. The doctor's 
hope in this was that he should be sent as a spy to 
Greece, before the war, and should make his es- 
cape ; but it was a bad way of showing love to his 
country. Hippias was at Susa too, trying to stir 
up Darius to attack Athens, and restore him as a 
tributary king ; and there was also Histiseus, a 
Greek who had been tyrant of Miletus, and who 
longed to get home. All the Ionian Greeks on the 
coast of Asia Minor hated the Persian rule, and 
Histiseus hoped that if they revolted he should be 
wanted there, so he sent a letter to his friend Aris- 
tagoras, at Miletus, in a most curious way. He 
had the head of a trusty slave shaved, then, with a 
red-hot pin, wrote his advice to rise against the 
Persians, and, when the hair was grown again, sent 
the man as a present to Aristagoras, with orders to 
tell him to shave his head. 



Pisistratus and His Sons. 161 

Aristagoras read the letter, and went to Sparta 
to try to get the help of the kings in attacking 
Persia. He took with him a brass plate, engraven 
with a map of the world, according to the notions 
of the time, where it looked quite easy to march to 
Susa, and win the great Eastern empire. At first 
Cleomenes, the most spirited of the kings, was in- 
clined to listen, but when he found that this easy 
march would take three months he changed his 
mind, and thought it beyond Spartan powers. 
Aristagoras went secretly to his house, and tried 
to bribe him, at least to help the Ionians in their 
rising ; but while higher and higher offers were 
being made, Gorgo, the little daughter of Cleome- 
nes, only eight years old, saw by their looks that 
something was WTong, and cried out, " Go away, 
father ; this stranger will do you harm." Cleome- 
nes took it as the voice of an oracle, and left the 
stranger to himself. 

He then went to Athens, and the Athenians, 
being Ionians themselves, listened more willingly, 
and promised to aid their brethren in freeing them- 
selves. Together, the Athenians and a large body 
of Ephesians, Milesians, and other Ionians, attacked 
Sardis. The Persian satrap Artaphernes threw 

himself into the citadel ; but the town, which was 

it 



162 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

built chiefly of wicker-work, that the houses might 
not be easily thrown down by earthquakes, caught 
fire, and was totally burnt. The Athenians could 
not stay in the flaming streets, and had to give 
back, and the whole Persian force of the province 
came up and drove them out. Darius was furious 
when he heard of the burning of Sardis, and, for 
fear he should forget his revenge, ordered that a 
slave should mention the name of Athens every day 
to him as he sat down to dinner. Histiaeus, how- 
ever, succeeded in his plan, for Darius believed 
him when he said the uproar could only have 
broken out in his absence, and let him go home to 
try to put it down. 

He was not very well received by Artaphernes, 
who was sure he was at the bottom of the revolt. 
" Aristagoras put on the shoe," he said, "but it was 
of your stitching." 

Aristagoras had been killed, and Histiaeus, flee- 
ing to the Ionians, remained with them till they 
were entirely beaten, and he surrendered to the 
Persians, by whom he was crucified, while the 
Ionians were entirely crushed, and saw their fairest 
children carried off to be slaves in the palace at 
Susa. Darius had longed after Greek slaves ever 
since he had seen a fine handsome girl walking 



Pisistratus and His Sons. 163 

along, upright, with a pitcher of water on her head, 
the bridle of a horse she was leading over her arm, 
and her hands busy with a distaff. He did not 
know that such grand people are never found in 
enslaved, oppressed countries, like his own, and he 
wanted to have them all under his power, so he be- 
gan to raise his forces from all parts of his empire, 
for the conquest of what seemed to him the inso- 
lent little cities of Greece ; and Hippias, now an 
old man, undertook to show him the way to 
Athens, and to betray his country. The battle 
was between the East and West — between a des- 
pot ruling mere slaves, and free, thoughtful cities, 
full of evil indeed, and making many mistakes, but 
brave and resolute, and really feeling for their 
hearths and homes. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. 
B.C. 490. 

THE whole Persian fleet, manned by Phoenician 
sailors, and a huge army, under the two 
satraps Datis and Artaphernes, were on the oppo- 
site side of the iEgean Sea, ready to overwhelm 
little Attica first, and then all Greece. Nobody 
had yet stood firm against those all-conquering 
Persians, and as they came from island to island 
the inhabitants fled or submitted. Attica was so 
small as to have only 9000 fighting men to meet 
this host. They sent to ask the aid of the Spartans, 
but though these would have fought bravely, an 
old rule forbade them to march during the week 
before the full moon, and in this week Athens 
might be utterly ruined. Nobody did come to 

their help but 600 men from the very small state of 

164 



The Battle of Marathon. 165 

Platsea, and this little army, not numbering 10,000, 
were encamped around the temple of Hercules, 
looking down upon the bay of Marathon, where 
lay the ships which had just landed at least 200,000 
men of all the Eastern nations, and among them 
many of the Greeks of Asia Minor. The hills 
slant back so as to make a sort of horse-shoe round 
the bay, with about five miles of clear flat ground 
between them and the sea, and on this open space 
lay the Persians. 

It was the rule among the Athenians that the 
heads of their ten tribes should command by turns 
each for a day, but Aristides, the best and most 
high-minded of all of them, persuaded the rest to 
give up their turns to Miltiades, who was known, 
to be the most skilful captain. He drew up his 
men in a line as broad as the whole front of the 
Persian army, though far less deep, and made them 
all come rushing down at them with even step, but 
at a run, shouting the war-cry, " Io paean ! Io 
paean ! " In the middle, where the best men of the 
Persians were, they stood too firm to be thus 
broken, but at the sides they gave way, and ran 
back towards the sea, or over the hills, and then 
Miltiades gave a signal to the two side divisions — 
wings, as they were called — to close up together, 



166 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

and crush the Persian centre. The enemy now 
thought of nothing but reaching their ships and put- 
ting out to sea, while the Athenians tried to seize 
their ships ; Cynegyrus, a brave Greek, caught hold 
of the prow of one ship, and when the crew cut off 
his hand with an axe, he still clung with the other, till 
that too was cut off, and he sank and was drowned. 
The fleet still held mairy men, and the Athenians 
saw that, instead of crossing back to Asia Minor, it 
was sailing round the promontory of Sunium, as if 
to attack Athens. It was even said that a friend 
of Hippias had raised a shield, glittering in the sun, 
as a signal that all the men were away. However, 
Miltiades left Aristides, with his tribe of 1000 men, 
to guard the plain and bury the dead, and marched 
back over the hills with the rest to guard their 
homes, that same night; but the Persians must 
have been warned, or have changed their mind, for 
they sailed away for Asia ; and Hippias, who seems 
to have been wounded in the battle, died at Lem- 
nos. The Spartans came up just as all was over, 
and greatly praised the Athenians, for indeed it 
was the first time Greeks had beaten Persians, and 
it was the battle above all others that saved Europe 
from falling under the slavery of the East. The 
fleet was caught by a storm as it crossed the 
JEgean Sea again. 



The Battle of Marathon. 167 

All the Athenians who had been slain were 
bnried under one great mound, adorned with ten 
pillars bearing their names ; the Platseans had 
another honorable mound, and the Persians a third. 
All the treasure that was taken in the camp and 
ships was honorably brought to the city and 
divided. There was only one exception, namely, 
one Kallias, who wore long hair bound with a fillet, 
and was taken for a king by a poor Persian, who 
fell on his knees before him, and showed him a 
well where was a great deal of gold hidden. Kal- 
lias not only took the gold, but killed the poor 
stranger, and his family were ever after held as dis- 
graced, and called by a nickname meaning "En- 
riched by the Well." 

The Plataeans were rewarded by being made 
freemen of Athens, as well as of their own city ; 
and Miltiades, while all his countrymen were full 
of joy and exultation, asked of them a fleet of 
seventy ships, promising to bring them fame and 
riches. With it he sailed for the island of Paros, 
that which was specially famed for its white marble. 
He said he meant to punish the Parians for having 
joined the Persians, but it really was because of a 
quarrel of his own. He landed, and required the 
Parians to pay him a hundred talents, and when 



168 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

they refused he besieged the city, until a woman 
named Timo, who was priestess at a temple of 
Ceres near the gates, promised to tell him a way of 
taking the city if he would meet her at night in 
the temple, where no man was allowed to enter. 
He came, and leaped over the outer fence of the 
temple, but, brave as he was in battle, terror at 
treading on forbidden and sacred ground over- 
powered him, and, without seeing the priestess, he 
leaped back again, fell on the other side, and 
severely injured his thigh. The siege was given 
up, and he was carried back helpless to Athens, 
where there was no mercy to failures, and he was 
arraigned before the Areopagus assembly, by a man 
named Xanthippus, for having wasted the money 
of the State and deceived the people, and therefore 
being guilty of death. 

It must have been a sad thing to see the great 
captain, who had saved his country in that great 
battle only a year or two before, lying on his couch, 
too ill to defend himself, while his brother spoke 
for him, and appealed to his former services. 
In consideration of these it was decided not to con- 
demn him to die, but he was, instead, to pay fifty 
talents of silver, and before the sum could be 
raised, he died of his hurts. It was said that his 



The Battle of Marathon. 169 

son Kimon put himself into prison till the fine 
could be raised, so as to release his fathers corpse, 
which was buried with all honor on the plain of 
Marathon, with a tomb recording his glory, and not 
his fall. 

The two chief citizens who were left were Aris- 
tides and Themistocles, both very able men ; but 
Aristides was perfectly high-minded, unselfish, and 
upright, while Themistocles cared for his own 
greatness more than anything else. Themistocles 
was so clever that his tutor had said to him when 
he was a child, " Boy, thou wilt never be an ordi- 
nary person ; thou wilt either be a mighty blessing 
or a mighty curse to thy country." When he grew 
up he used his powers of leading the multitude for 
his own advantage, and that of his party. " The 
gods forbid," he said, "that I should sit on any 
tribunal where my friends should not have more 
advantage than strangers." While, on the other 
hand, Aristides was so impartial and single-hearted 
that he got the name of Aristides the Just. He 
cared most for the higher class, the aristoi, and 
thought they could govern best, while Themisto- 
cles sought after the favor of the people ; and they 
both led the minds of the Athenians so completely 
while they were speaking, that, after a meeting 



170 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

where they had both made a speech, Aristides said, 
" Athens will never be safe till Themistocles and I 
are both in prison," meaning that either of them 
could easily make himself tyrant. 

However, Aristides, though of high family, was 
very poor, and men said it was by the fault of his 
cousin Kallias, the " Enriched by the Well ; " and 
Themistocles contrived to turn people's minds 
against him, so as to have him ostracised. One 
day he met a man in the street with a shell in his 
hand, who asked him to write the name of Aristides 
on it, as he could not write himself. " Pray," said 
Aristides, " what harm has this person done you, 
that you wish to banish him ? " 

"No harm at all," said the man; "only lam 
sick of always hearing him called the Just." 

Aristides had no more to say, but wrote his own 
name ; and six thousand shells having been counted 
up against him, he was obliged to go into exile for 
ten years. 

Cynegyrus, the man whose hands had been cut 
off in the bay of Marathon, had a very famous 
brother named ^Eschylus — quite a brave soldier, 
and a poet besides. The Athenians had come to 
worshiping Bacchus, but not in the horrid, mad, 
drunken manner of the first orgies. They had 




ARISTIDES AND THE COUNTRYMAN. 



The Battle of Marathon. 173 

songs and dances by persons with their heads 
wreathed in vine and ivy leaves, and a goat was 
sacrificed in the midst. The Greek word for a goat 
is tragos, and the dances came to be called trage- 
dies. Then came in the custom of having poetical 
speeches in the midst of the dances, made in the 
person of some old hero or god, and these always 
took place in a curve in the side of a hill, so worked 
out by art that the rock was cut into galleries, for 
half-circles of spectators to sit one above the other, 
while the dancers and speakers were on the flat 
space at the bottom. Thespis, whom Solon re- 
proved for falsehoods, was the first person who 
made the dancers and singers, who were called the 
chorus, so answer one another and the speakers 
that the tragedy became a play, representing some 
great action of old. The actors had to wear brazen 
masks and tall buskins, or no one could have well 
seen or heard them. iEschylus, when a little boy, 
was set to watch the grapes in his father's vine- 
yard. He fell asleep, and dreamt that Bacchus 
appeared to him, and bade him make his festivals 
noble with tragedies ; and this he certainly did, for 
the poetry he wrote for them is some of the grand- 
est that man ever sung, and shows us how these 
great Greeks were longing and feeling after the 



174 Young Folks* History of Grreece. 

truth, like blind men groping in the dark. The 
custom was to have three grave plays or tragedies 
on the same subject on three successive days, and 
then to finish with a droll one, or comedy, as it was 
called, in honor of the god Comus. There is one 
trilogy of ^Eschylus still preserved to us, where we 
have the death of Agamemnon, the vengeance of 
Orestes, and his expiation when pursued by the 
Furies, but the comedy belonging to them is lost. 

Almost all the greatest and best Greeks of this 
time believed in part in the philosophy of Pythag- 
oras, who had lived in the former century, and 
taught that the whole universe was one great divine 
musical instrument, in which stars, sun, winds, and 
earth did their part, and that man ought to join 
himself into the same sweet harmony. He thought 
that if a man did ill his spirit went into some ani- 
mal, and had a fresh trial to purify it, but it does 
not seem as if many others believed this notion. 



T 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE EXPEDITION OF XERXES. 
B.C. 480. 



HE Athenians had not a long breathing-time. 



Darius, indeed, died five years after the 

battle of Marathon ; but his son Xerxes was far 

more fiery and ambitious, and was no sooner on the 

throne than he began to call together all the vast 

powers of the East, not to crush Athens alone, but 

all the Greeks. He was five years gathering them 

together, but in the spring of 480 he set cut from 

Sardis to march to the Hellespont, where he had a 

bridge of ships chained together, made to enable 

his army to cross the strait on foot> Xerxes was a 

hot tempered man, not used to resistance, and it 

was said, when a storm broke part of his bridge, he 

caused the waves to be scourged and fetters to be 

thrown in, to show that he was going to bind it to 

175 



176 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

his will. He sat on a throne to watch his armies 
pass by. It is said that there were a myriad — 
that is, a million millions — of men, of every speech 
and dress in Asia and Egypt, with all sorts of 
weapons; and as the "Great King" watched the 
endless number pass by, he burst into tears to think 
how soon all this mighty host would be dead men ! 

Xerxes had a huge fleet besides, manned by 
Phoenicians and Greeks of Asia Minor, and this did 
not venture straight across the iEgean, because of 
his father's disaster, but went creeping round the 
northern coast. Mount Athos, standing out far 
and steep into the sea, stood in the way, and it was 
dangerous to go round it ; so Xerxes thought it 
would be an undertaking worthy of him to have a 
canal dug across the neck that joins the mountain 
to the land, and the Greeks declared that he wrote 
a letter to the mountain god, bidding him not to 
put rocks in the way of the workmen of the " Great 
King." Traces of this canal can still be found in 
the ravine behind Mount Athos. 

All the Greeks knew their danger now, and a 
council from every city met at the Isthmus of Co- 
rinth to consider what was to be done. All their 
ships, 271 in number, were gathered in a bay on 
the north of the great island of Euboea. There the 



The Expedition of Xerxes. 177 

Spartan captain of the whole watched and waited, 
till beacons from height to height announced that 
the Persians were coming, and then he thought it 
safer to retreat within the Euripus, the channel be- 
tween the island and the mainland, which is so 
narrow that a very few ships could stop the way 
of a whole fleet. However, just as they were 
within shelter, a terrible storm arose, which broke 
up and wrecked a great number of Persian ships, 
though the number that were left still was far 
beyond that of the Greeks. On two days the 
Greeks ventured out, and always gained the 
victory over such ships as they encountered, but 
were so much damaged themselves, without de- 
stroying anything like the whole fleet, that such 
fighting was hopeless work. 

In the meantime Xerxes, with his monstrous land 
army, was marching on, and the only place where 
it seemed to the council at the Isthmus that he 
could be met and stopped was at a place in 
Thessaly, where the mountains of (Eta rose up like 
a steep wall, leaving no opening but towards the 
sea, where a narrow road wound round the foot of 
the cliff, and between it and the sea was a marsh 

that men and horses could never cross. The 

12 



178 Young Folks History of Greece. 

springs that made this bog were hot, so that it was 
called Thermopylae, or the Hot Gates. 

The council at the Isthmus determined to send 
an army to stop the enemy there, if possible. 
There were 300 Spartans, and various troops from 
other cities, all under the command of one of the 
Spartan kings, Leonidas, who had married Gorgo, 
the girl whose word had kept her father faithful. 
They built up a stone wall in front of them, and 
waited for the enemy, and by-and-by the Persians 
came, spreading over an immense space in the rear, 
but in this narrow road only a few could fight at 
once, so that numbers were of little use. Xerxes 
sent to desire the Spartans to give up their arms. 
Leonidas only answered, " Come and take them." 
The Persian messenger reported that the Greeks 
were sitting on the Avail combing their hair, while 
others were playing at warlike games. Xerxes 
thought they were mad, but a traitor Spartan 
whom he had in his camp said it was always the 
fashion of his countrymen before any very perilous 
battle. Xerxes made so sure of victory over such 
a handful of men, that he bade his captains bring 
them all alive to him ; but day after day his best 
troops fell beaten back from the wall, and hardly a 
Greek was slain. 



The Expedition of Xerxes. 179 

But, alas ! there was a mountain path through 
the chestnut woods above. Leonidas had put a 
guard of Phocian soldiers to watch it, and the 
Persians did not know of it till a wretch, named 
Ephialtes, for the sake of reward, came and offered 




PASS OF THERMOPYLAE. 



to show them the way, so that they might fall on 
the defenders of the pass from behind. In the still- 
ness of the dawn, the Phocians heard the trampling 
of a multitude on the dry chestnut leaves. They 
stood to arms, but as soon as the Persians shot their 



180 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

arrows at them they fled away and left the path open. 
Soon it was known in the camp that the foe were on 
the hills above. There was still time to retreat, 
and Leonidas sent off all the allies to save their 
lives ; but he himself and his 300 Spartans, with 700 
Thespians, would not leave their post, meaning to 
sell their lives as dearly as possible. The Delphic 
oracle had said that either Sparta or a king of 
Sparta must perish, and he was ready to give him- 
self for his country. Two young cousins of the 
line of Hercules he tried to save, by telling them 
to bear his messages home ; but one answered that 
he had come to fight, not carry letters, and the 
other that they would fight first, and then take 
home the news. Two more Spartans, whose eyes 
were diseased, were at the hot baths near. One 
went back with the allies, the other caused his 
Helot to lead him to the camp, where, in the 
evening, all made ready to die, and Leonidas sat 
down to his last meal, telling his friends that on 
the morrow they should sup with Pluto. One of 
these Thespians had answered, when he was told 
that the Persian arrows came so thickly as to hide 
the sky, u So much the better ; we shall fight in the 
shade." 

The Persians were by this time so much afraid 







EPHIALTES LEADING THE PERSIANS. 



The Expedition of Xerxes. 183 

of these brave men that they could only be driven 

against them by Avhips. Leonidas and his thousand 

burst out on them beyond the wall, and there 

fought the whole day, till everyone of them was 

slain, but with heaps upon heaps of dead Persians 

round them, so that, when Xerxes looked at the 

spot, he asked in horror whether all the Greeks 

were like these, and how many more Spartans there 

were. Like a barbarian, he had Leonidas' body 

hung on a cross ; but in after times the brave king's 

bones were buried on the spot, and a mound raised 

over the other warriors, with the words engraven — 

" Go, passer-by, at Sparta tell, 
Obedient to her law, we fell. 

There was nothing now between the Persians and 
the temple at Delphi. The priests asked the oracle if 
they should bury the treasures. "No," the answer 
was ; " the god will protect its own." And just as a 
party of Persians were climbing up the heights to 
the magnificent temple there was a tremendous 
storm; rocks, struck by lightning, rolled down, and 
the Persians fled in dismay ; but it is said Xerxes 
sent one man to insult the heathen god, and that he 
was a Jew, and therefore had no fears, and came 
back safe. 

Now that Thermopylae was lost, there was no 



184 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

place fit to guard short of the Isthmus of Corinth, 
and the council decided to build a wall across that, 
and defend it, so as to save the Peloponnesus. 
This left Attica outside, and the Athenians held 
anxious council what was to become of them. 
Before the way to Delphi was stopped, they had 
asked the oracle what they were to do, and the 
answer had been, " Pallas had prayed for her city, 
but it was doomed ; yet a wooden wall should save 
her people, and at Salamis should women be made 
childless, at seed-time or harvest." 

Themistocles said the wooden walls meant the 
ships, and that the Athenians were all to sail away 
and leave the city. Others would have it that the 
wooden walls were the old thorn fence of the 
Acropolis, and these, being mostly old people, chose 
to stay, Avhile all the rest went away ; and while 
the wives and children were kindly sheltered by 
their friends in the Peloponnesus, the men all joined 
the fleet, which lay off Salamis, and was now 366 in 
number. The Persians overran the whole country, 
overcame the few who held the Acropolis, and 
set Athens on fire. All the hope of Greece was 
now in the fleet, which lay in the strait between 
Attica and the isle of Salamis. Eurybiades, the 
Spartan commander, still wanted not to fight, but 



The Expedition of Xerxes. 185 

Themistocles was resolved on the battle. Eury- 
biades did all he could to silence him. " Those 
who begin a race before the signal are scourged,*' 
said the Spartan. " True," said Themistocles ; 
"but the laggards never win a crown." Eurybia- 
des raised his leading staff as if to give him a blow. 
" Strike, but hear me," said Themistocles ; and 
then he showed such good reason for there meeting 
the battle that Eurybiades gave way. Six days 
later the Persian fleet, in all its grandeur, came up, 
and Xerxes caused his throne to be set on Mount 
iEgaloes, above the strait, that he might see the 
battle. The doubts of the Peloponnesians revived. 
They wanted to sail away and guard their own 
shores, but Themistocles was so resolved that they 
should fight that he sent a slave with a message to 
Xerxes, pretending to be a traitor, and advising 
him to send ships to stop up the other end of the 
strait, to cut off their retreat. This was done to 
the horror of honest Aristides, who, still exiled, 
was in JEgina, watching what to do for his country- 
men. In a little boat he made his way at night to 
the ship where council was being held, and begged 
that Themistocles might be called out. " Let us 
be rivals still," he said ; " but let our strife be which 
can serve our country best. I come to say that 



186 Young Folks" History of Grreece. 

your retreat is cut off. We are surrounded, and 
must fight." Themistocles said it was the best 
thing that could happen, and led him into the 
council with his tidings. 

They did fight. Ship was dashed against ship as 
fast as oars could bring them, their pointed beaks 
bearing one another down. The women who were 
made childless were Persian women. Two hun- 
dred Persian ships were sunk, and only forty Greek 
ones ; an immense number were taken ; and Xerxes, 
from his throne, saw such utter ruin of all his hopes 
and plans, that he gave up all thought of anything 
but getting his land army back to the Hellespont 
as fast as possible, for his fleet was gone ! 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE BATTLE OF PLAT^EA. 
B.C. 479 — 460. 

AFTER being thus beaten by sea, and having 
learnt what Greeks were by land, Xerxes 
himself, with a broken, sick, and distressed army, 
went back to Sardis ; but he left a satrap named 
Mardonius behind him, with his best troops, in 
Thessaly, to see whether anything could still be 
clone for his cause. He did try whether the 
Athenians could be persuaded to desert the other 
Greeks, and become allies of Persia, but they made 
a noble answer — "So long as the sun held his 
course, the Athenians would never be friends to 
Xerxes. Great as might be his power, Athens 
trusted to the aid of the gods and heroes whose 
temple he had burnt." 

After this answer, Marclonius marched again 

187 



188 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 



into Attica, and took possession of it ; but as the 
Athenians were now all safe in Salamis, or among 
their friends, he could not do them much harm ; 
and, while he was finishing the ruin he had begun 
ten months before, the Spartans had raised their 
army, under the command of their king, Pausanias, 
nephew to Leonidas, with all the best soldiers from 
the other Greek cities. They came up with the 
Persians near the city of Platsea. Though a Spar- 
tan, Pausanius had rather not have fought ; but 
when at last the battle began, it was a 
grand victory and was gained in a 
wonderfully short time. The Spartans 
killed Mardonius, and put the best Per- 
sian troops, called the immortals, to 
flight ; and the Athenians, under Aris- 
tides, fought with the Thebans, who 
had joined the Persian army. The 
whole Persian camp was sacked. The 
Helots were sent to collect the spoil, 
and put all together. They stole a 
good deal of the gold, which they took 
for brass, and sold it as such. Wagon- 
persian soldier, loads of silver and gold vessels were to 
be seen ; collars, bracelets, and rich armor ; and the 
manger of Xerxes' horses, which he had left behind, 




The Battle of Platcea. 189 

and which was of finely-worked brass. Pausanias 
bade the slaves of Mardonius to prepare such a 
feast as their master was used to, and then called 
his friends to see how useless were all the carpets, 
cushions, curtains, gold and silver, and the dainties 
upon them, and how absurd it was to set out on a 
conquering expedition thus encumbered. 

A tenth of the spoil was set apart for Apollo, and 
formed into a golden tripod, supported by a brazen 
serpent with three heads. A great statue of Jupiter 
was sent to Olympia, the pedestal adorned with the 
names of all the cities which had sent men to the 
battle, and such another of Neptune was set up on 
the Isthmus ; while a temple to Athene, adorned 
with pictures of the battle, was built on the spot 
near Platsea. Pausanias received a sample of all 
that was best of the spoil. Among the dead was 
found that one Spartan who had missed Ther- 
mopylae. He had been miserable ever since, and 
only longed to die in battle, as now he had done. 
The Plataeans were to be respected by all the other 
states of Greece, so long as they yearly performed 
funeral rites in honor of the brave men whose 
tombs were left in their charge. 

On the same day as the battle of Platsea was 
fought, another great battle was fought at Mykale, 



190 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

near Miletus, by the Ionian Greeks of Asia, assisted 
by Athenians and Spartans. It set Miletus free 
from the Persians, and was the first step backwards 
of their great power. The Athenian fleet also 
gained back the Chersonesus, and brought home the 
chains that fastened together the bridge of boats, 
to be dedicated in the temples of their own gods. 

The Athenians were all coming home rejoicing. 
Even the very week after Xerxes had burnt the 
Acropolis, the sacred olive which Pallas Athene 
was said to have given them had shot out a long 
branch from the stump, and now it was growing 
well, to their great joy and encouragement. Every- 
one began building up his own house ; and 
Themistocles, Aristides, and the other statesmen 
prepared to build strong walls round the city, 
though the Spartans sent messengers to persuade 
them that it was of no use to have any fortified 
cities outside the Peloponnesus ; but they knew 
this was only because the Spartans wanted to be 
masters of Greece, and would not attend to them. 
Athens stood about three miles from the coast, and 
in the port there had hitherto been a village called 
Piraeus, and Themistocles persuaded the citizens to 
make this as strong as possible, with a wall of solid 
stone round it. These were grand days at Athens. 



The Battle of Platcea. 191 

They had noble architects and sculptors ; and 
JEschylus was writing the grandest of his tragedies 
— especially one about the despair of the Persian 
women — but only fragments of most of them have 
come down to our time. 

In 375 Aristides died, greatly honored, though 
he was so poor that he did not leave enough to pay 
his funeral expenses ; but a monument was raised 
to him by the State, and there is only one Athenian 
name as pure and noble as his. 

The two other men who shared with him the 
honors of the defeat of the Persians met with very 
different fates, and by their own fault. When 
Pausanias went back to Sparta he found his life 
there too stern and full of restraint, after what he 
had been used to in his campaign. He tried to 
break down the power of the Ephors, and obtain 
something more like royalty for the kings, and this 
he hoped to do by the help of Persia. He used to 
meet the messenger of this traitorous correspon- 
dence in the temple of Neptune, in the promontory 
of Taenarus. Some of the Ephors were warned, 
hid themselves there, and heard his treason from his 
own lips. They sent to arrest him as soon as he 
came back to Sparta ; but he took refuge in the 
temple of Pallas, whence he could not be dragged. 



192 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

However, the Spartans were determined to have 
justice on him. They walled up the temple, so 
that he could neither escape nor have food brought 
to him ; indeed it is said that, in horror at his 
treason, his mother brought the first stone. When 
he was at the point of death he was taken out, that 
the sanctuary might not be polluted, and he died 
just as he was carried out. The Spartans buried 
him close to the temple, and gave Pallas two 
statues of him, to make up for the suppliant she had 
lost, but they were always reproached for the sacri- 
lege. 

Themistocles was a friend of Pausanias, and was 
suspected of being mixed up in his plots. He was 
obliged to flee the country, and went to Epirus, 
where he came to the house of King Admetus, 
where the queen, Phthia, received him, and told 
him how to win her husband's protection, namely, 
by sitting clown on the hearth by the altar to the 
household gods, and holding her little son in his 
arms. 

When Admetus came in, Themistocles entreated 
him to have pity on his defenceless state. The 
king raised him up and promised his protection, 
and kept his word. Themistocles was taken by 
two guides safely across the mountains to Pydna, 



The Battle of Platcea. 193 

where he found a merchant ship about to sail for 
Asia. A storm drove it to the island of Naxos, 
which was besieged by an Athenian fleet ; and 
Themistocles must have fallen into the hands of 
his fellow-citizens if he had landed, but he told the 
master of the ship that it would be the ruin of all 
alike if he were found in the vessel, and promised 
a large reward if he escaped. So the crew con- 
sented to beat about a whole day and night, and in 
the morning landed safely near Ephesus. He kept 
his word to the captain ; for indeed he was very 
rich, having taken bribes, while Aristides remained 
in honorable poverty. He went to Susa, where 
Xerxes was dead ; but the Persians had fancied 
his message before the battle of Salamis was really 
meant to serve them, and that he was suffering for 
his attachment to them, so the new king, Arta- 
xerxes, the " Long-armed," who had a great es- 
teem for his cleverness, was greatly delighted, 
offered up a sacrifice in his joy, and three times 
cried out in his sleep, " I have got Themistocles 
the Athenian." 

Themistocles had asked to wait a year before 
seeing the king, that he might have time to learn 
the language. When he came, he put forward 
such schemes for conquering Greece that Arta- 

13 



194 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

xerxes was delighted, and gave him a Persian wife, 
and large estates on the banks of the Meander, 
where he spent the rest of his life, very rich, but 
despised by all honest Greeks. 

All the history of the war with Xerxes was 
written by Herodotus, a Greek of Caria, who trav- 
eled about to study the manners, customs, and his- 
tories of different nations, and recorded them in 
the most lively and spirited manner, so that he is 
often called the father of history. 

^Eschylus went on gaining prizes for his trage- 
dies, till 468, when, after being thirteen times first, 
he was excelled by another Athenian named Sopho- 
cles, and was so much vexed that he withdrew to 
the Greek colonies in Sicily. It is not clear 
whether he ever came back to Athens for a time, 
but he certainly died in Sicily, and in an extraor- 
dinary way. He was asleep on the sea-shore, when 
an eagle flew above him with a tortoise in its claws. 
It is the custom of eagles to break the shells of 
these creatures by letting them fall on rocks from a 
great height. The bird took Eschylus' bald head 
for a stone, threw down the tortoise, broke his 
skull, and killed him ! 

Sophocles did not write such grand lines, yearn- 
ing for the truth, as JEschylus, but his plays, of 



The Battle of Plateea. 195 

Ajax' madness, and especially of Antigone's self- 
devotion, were more touching, and full of human 
feeling ; and Euripides, who was a little younger, 
wrote plays more like those of later times, with 
more of story in them, and more characters, espe- 
cially of women. He even wrote one in which he 
represented Helen as never having been unfaithful 
at all ; Venus only made up a cloud-image to be 
run away with by Paris, and Helen was carried 
away and hidden in Egypt, where Menelaus found 
her, and took her home. The works of these three 
great men have always been models. The Greeks 
knew their plays by heart almost as perfectly as 
the Iliad and Odyssey, and used to quote lines 
wherever they applied. 




CHAPTER XIX. 

THE AGE OF PERICLES. 
B.C. 464—429. 

ATHENS and Sparta were now quite the 
greatest powers in Greece. No other state 
had dared to make head against the Persians, and 
all the lesser cities, and the isles and colonies, were 
anxious to obtain the help and friendship of one or 
other as their allies. The two states were always 
rivals, and never made common cause, except when 
the Persian enemy was before them. In the year 
464 there was a terrible earthquake in Laconia, 
which left only five houses standing in Sparta, and 
buried great numbers in the ruins. The youths, 
who were all together in one building exercising 
themselves, were almost all killed by its fall ; and 
the disaster would have been worse if the king 

Archidamas, had not caused the trumpet to be 

196 



The Age of Pericles. 197 

blown, as if to call the people to arms, just outside 
the city. This brought all the men in order 
together just in time, for the Helots were rising 
against them, and, if they had found them groping 
each in the ruins of his house, might have killed 
them one by one ; whereas, finding them up and 
armed, the slaves saw it was in vain, and dispersed. 
The Messenians, who had never forgotten Aristo- 
demus, hoped to free themselves again. A great 
many of the Helots joined them, and they made 
their fortified hill of Ithome very strong. The 
Spartans called on the Athenians to help them to 
put down the insurrection. The three greatest 
irien in Athens were Pericles, the son of that 
Xanthippus who had impeached Miltiades; KimSn, 
the son of Miltiades himself ; and Ephialtes, a great 
orator, who was thought to be as upright as 
Aristides the Just. When the request from Sparta 
came, Ephialtes was against helping the rival of 
Athens ; but Kimon, who had friends in Laconia, 
declared that it would be unbecoming in Athens to 
let Greece be crippled in one of her two legs, or to 
lose her own yoke-fellow. He prevailed, and was 
sent with an army to help in the siege of Ithome ; 
but it was such a tardy siege that the Spartans 
fancied that the Athenians had an understanding 



198 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

with the Messenians, and desired them to go home 
again, thus, of course, affronting them exceedingly. 
Two years after, Kimon was ostracised ; but soon 
after the Spartans affronted the Athenians, by 
placing a troop of men at Tanagra, on the borders 
of Attica. The Athenians went out to attack 
them, and KimSn sent to entreat permission to 
fight among his tribe, but he was not trusted, and 
was forbidden. He sent his armor to his friends — 
a hundred in number — and bade them maintain his 
honor. They were all killed, fighting bravely, and 
the victory was with the Spartans. Soon after, the 
virtuous Ephialtes was stabbed by some unknown 
person, and Pericles, feeling that good men could 
not be spared, moved that Kimon should be called 
home again. Kimfai was much loved ; he was tall 
and handsome, with curly hair and beard ; and he 
was open-handed, leaving his orchards and gardens 
free to all, and keeping a table for every chance 
guest. Yet he much admired the Spartans and 
their discipline, and he contrived to bring about a 
five-years' truce between the two great powers. 
The greatest benefit he gave his people was the 
building of the Long Walls, which joined Athens 
and the Piraeus together, so that the city could 
never be cut off from the harbor. Kimon began 



The Age of Pericles. 199 

them at his own expense, and Pericles persuaded 
the Athenians to go on with them, when their 
founder had been sent on an expedition to the isle 
of Cyprus, which was rising against the Persians. 
There Kimon fell sick and died, but his fleet, 
immediately after, won a grand victory over the 
Phoenician and Cilician fleets, in the Persian 
service. 

However, some hot-headed young Athenians 
were beaten at Coronea by the Boeotians, who were 
Spartan allies, and a good many small losses befel 
them by land, till they made another peace for 
thirty years in 445. There was nobody then in 
Athens, or Greece either, equal to Pericles, who 
was managing all affairs in his own city with great 
wisdom, and making it most beautiful with public 
buildings. On the rock of the Acropolis stood the 
Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess Pallas 
Athene, which was adorned with a portico, the re- 
mains of which still stands up gloriously against the 
blue Grecian sky. The bas-relief carvings on the 
pediments, representing the fight between the Cen- 
taurs and Lapithse, are now in the British Museum ; 
though the statue itself is gone, still seals and gems 
remain, made to imitate it, and showing the perfect 
beauty of the ivory and gold statue of Athene her- 



200 Young Folks'* History of Greece. 

self, which was carved by the great sculptor Phidias, 
and placed within the temple. When there was a 
question whether this figure should be made of 
marble or of ivor}^ and Phidias recommended 
marble as the cheapest, the whole assembly of 
Athenians voted for ivory. 

A beautiful fortification called the Propylaea 
guarded the west side of the Acropolis, where only 
there was no precipice ; and there were other 
splendid buildings — a new, open theatre, for the 
acting of those unrivalled tragedies of the three 
Athenian poets, and of others which have been 
lost ; a Museum, which did not then mean a 
collection of curiosities, but a place where the youth 
might study all the arts sacred to the Muses ; a 
Lyceum for their exercises, and schools for the 
philosophers. These schools were generally colon- 
nades of pillars supporting roofs to give shelter 
from the sun, and under one of these taught the 
greatest, wisest, and best of all truth-seekers, 
namely, Socrates. 

Though the houses at Athens stood irregularly 
on their steep hill, there was no place in the world 
equal to it for beauty in its buildings, its sculptures, 
and its carvings, and, it is also said, in its paint- 
ings ; but none of these have come down to our 



The Age of Pericles. 201 

times. Everything belonging to the Athenians was 
at this time full of simple, manly grace and beauty, 
and in both body and mind they were trying to 
work up to the greatest perfection they could 
devise, without any aid outside themselves to help 
them. 

But they had come to the very crown of their 
glory. When a war arose between the Corinthians 
and the Corcyrans, who inhabited the isle now 
called Corfu, the Corcyrans asked to be made al- 
lies of Athens, and a fleet was sent to help them ; 
and as the Corinthians held with Sparta, this 
brought on a great war between Athens and Sparta, 
which was called the Peloponnesian war, and lasted 
thirty years. It was really to decide which of the 
two great cities should be chief, and both were 
equally determined. 

As Attica had borders open to the enemy, Peri- 
cles advised all the people in the country to move 
into the town. They sent their flocks into the isle 
of Eubcea, brought their other goods with them, 
and left their beautiful farms and gardens to be 
ravaged by the enemy ; while the crowd found 
dwellings in a place under the west side of the 
Acropolis rock, which had hitherto been left empty, 
because an oracle had declared it " better untrod- 



202 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

den." Such numbers coming within the walls 
could not be healthy, and a deadly plague began to 
prevail, which did Athens as much harm as the 
war. In the meantime, Pericles, who was always 
cautious, persuaded the people to be patient, and 
not to risk battles by land, where the Spartans 
fought as well they did, whereas nobody was their 
equal by sea ; and as their fleet and their many 
isles could save them from hunger, they could w r ear 
out their enemies, and be fresh themselves ; but it 
was hard to have plague within and Spartans wast- 
ing their homes and fields without. Brave little 
Platsea, too, was closely besieged. All the useless 
persons had been sent to Athens, and there were 
only 400 Platsean and 80 Athenian men in it, and 
110 women to wait on them ; and the Spartans 
blockaded these, and tried to starve them out, un- 
til, after more than a year of famine, 220 of them 
scrambled over the walls on a dark, wet night, cut 
their way through the Spartan camp, and safely 
reached Athens. The other 200 had thought the 
attempt so desperate, that they sent in the morning 
to beg leave to bury the corpses of their comrades ; 
but they then heard that only one man had fallen. 
They held out a few months longer, and then were 
all put to death, while the women were all made 



The Age of Pericles. 203 

slaves. The children and the 220 were all made 
one with the Athenians. 

Athens was in a piteous state from the sickness, 
which had cut off hosts of people of all ranks. It 
lasted seven or nine days in each, and seems to 
have been a malignant fever. Pericles lost his 
oldest son, his sister, and almost all his dearest 
friends in it ; but still he went about calm, grave, 
and resolute, keeping up the hopes and patience 
of the Athenians. Then his youngest and last son 
died of the same sickness, and when the time came 
for placing the funeral garland on his head, Peri- 
cles broke down, and wept and sobbed aloud. 
Shortly after, he fell sick himself, and lingered 
much longer than was usual with sufferers from 
the plague. Once, when his friends came in, he 
showed them a charm which the women had hung 
round his neck, and, smiling, asked them whether 
enduring such folly did not show that he must be 
very ill indeed. Soon after, when he was sinking 
away, and they thought him insensible, they began 
to talk of the noble deeds he had done, his speeches, 
his wisdom and learning, and his buildings : " he 
had found Athens of brick," they said, " and had 
left her of marble." Suddenly the sick man raised 
himself in his bed, and said, " I wonder you praise 



204 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

these things in me. They were as much owing to 
fortune as to anything else ; and yet you leave out 
what is my special honor, namely, that I never 
caused any fellow-citizen to put on mourning." So 
died this great man, in 429, the third year of the 
Peloponnesian war. 




CHAPTER XX. 

THE EXPEDITION TO SICILY. 
B.C. 415 -—413. 

r^HE Peloponnesian war went on much in the 
-■- same way for some months after the death of 
Pericles. There was no such great man left in 
Athens. Socrates, the wise and deep-thinking 
philosopher, did not attend to state affairs more 
than was his duty as a citizen ; and the leading 
man for some years was Nikias. He was an honest, 
upright man, but not clever, and afraid of every- 
thing new, so that he was not the person to help in 
time of strange dangers. 

There was a youth growing up, however, of great 
ability. His name was Alkibiades. He was of 
high and noble family, but he had lost his parents 
very young, and Pericles had been his guardian, 
taking great care of his property, so that he was 

205 



206 



Young Folks* History of Greece. 



exceedingly rich. He was very beautiful in person, 
and that was thought of greatly at Athens, though 
he was laughed at for the pains he took to show off 
his beauty, and for carrying out to battle a shield 
inlaid with gold and ivory, representing Cupid 




THE ACADEMIC GROVE, ATHENS. 



hurling Jupiter's thunderbolts. His will was so 
determined, that, when he was a little boy at play 
in the street, and saw a wagon coming which would 
have spoiled his arrangements, he laid himself down 
before the wheels to stop it. He learnt easily, and, 
when he was with Socrates, would talk as well and 



The Expedition to Sicily. 207 

wisely as any philosopher of them all ; and Socrates 
really seems to have loved the bright, beautiful youth 
even more than his two graver and worthier pupils, 
Plato and Xenophon, perhaps because in one of 
Alkibiades' first battles, at Delium, he had been 
very badly wounded, and Socrates had carried him 
safely out of the battle on his broad shoulders. 
Socrates was very strong, but one of the ugliest of 
men, and the Athenians were amused at the con- 
trast between master and pupil. 

But nobody could help loving Alkibiades in 
these early years, and he was a sort of spoiled child 
of the people. He Avon three crowds in the chariot 
races at the Olympic games, and feasted and made 
presents to his fellow-citizens afterwards, and he was 
always doing some strange thing in order to make 
a sensation. The first day that he was old enough 
to be admitted to the public assembly, while he 
was being greeted there, he let loose a tame quail, 
which he carried about under his cloak, and no 
business could be done till it had been caught. 
Another time he came very late, with a garland on 
his head, and desired to have the sitting put off be- 
cause he had a feast at his house ; and the grave 
archoiis actually granted his request. But the 
strangest thing he did was to cut off the tail of his 



208 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

beautiful dog, that, as he said, the Athenians might 
have something to talk about. In truth he made 
everything give way to his freaks and self-will ; 
and he was a harsh and unkind husband, and inso- 
lent to his father-in-law; and, as time went on, he 
offended a great many persons by his pride and 
rudeness and selfishness, so that his brilliancy did 
little good. 

There were Greek colonies in Sicily, but these 
were mostly in the interest of Sparta. There had 
been some fighting there in the earlier years of the 
war, and Alkibiades was very anxious to lead 
another expedition thither. Nikias thought this 
imprudent, and argued much against it ; but the 
effect of his arguments was that the Athenians 
chose to join him in the command of it with Alki- 
biades, much against his will, for he was elderly, 
and out of health, and, of all men in Athens, he 
most disliked and distrusted Alkibiades. 

Just as the fleet for Sicily was nearly ready, all 
the busts of Mercury which stood as mile-stones on 
the roads in Attica were found broken and defaced ; 
and the enemies of Alkibiades declared that it was 
done in one of his drunken frolics. Such a thing 
done to the figure of a god was not mere mischief, 
but sacrilege, and there was to be a great inquiry 



The Expedition to Sicily. 209 

into it. Alkibiades wanted much to have the trial 
over before he sailed, that he might clear himself 
of the suspicion ; and, indeed, it seems certain that 
whatever follies he might commit when he had 
nothing to do, he had then far too much to think 
of to be likely to bring himself into trouble by such 
a wanton outrage. But the Athenians chose to 
put off the inquiry till he was gone, and the fleet 
set sail — the largest that had ever gone from the 
Piraeus — with the sound of trumpet, libations 
poured into the sea from gold and silver bowls, 
songs and solemn prayers, as the 100 war galleys 
rowed out of the harbor in one long column. At 
Corcyra the fleet halted to meet their allies, who 
raised the number of ships to 154, containing 5000 
heavily-armed men, with whom they made sail for 
Rhegium, the Italian foreland nearest to Sicily, 
whence they sent to make inquiries. They found 
more of the Greek cities were against them than 
they had expected, and their friends were weaker. 
Nikias wanted merely to sail round the island, and 
show the power of Athens, and then go home 
again. Lamachus, another general, wanted to 
make a bold attack on Syracuse at once ; and Al- 
kibiades had a middle plan, namely, to try to gain 
the lesser towns by force or friendship, and to stir 



210 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

up the native Sicels to revolt. This plan was ac- 
cepted, and was going on well — for Alkibiades 
could always talk anyone over, especially strangers, 
to whom his gracefulness and brilliancy were new 
— when orders came from Athens that he and his 
friends were to be at once sent home from the 
army, to answer for the mischief done to the busts, 
and for many other crimes of sacrilege, which were 
supposed to be a part of a deep plot for upsetting 
the laws of Solon, and making himself the tyrant 
of Athens. 

This was, of course, the work of his enemies, and 
the very thing he had feared. His friends wrote 
to him that the people were so furious against him 
that he had no chance of a fair trial, and he there- 
fore escaped on the way home, when, on his failing 
to arrive, he was solemnly cursed, and condemned 
to death. He took refuge in Sparta, where, fine 
gentleman as he was, he followed the rough, hardy 
Spartan manners to perfection, appeared to relish 
the black broth, and spoke the Doric Greek of La- 
conia, as it was said, more perfectly than the Spar- 
tans themselves. Unlike Aristides, and like the 
worst sort of exiles, he tried to get his revenge by 
persuading the allies of Athens in Asia Minor to 
revolt i and when the Spartans showed distrust of 



The Expedition to Sicily. 211 

him, he took refuge with the Persian satrap Tissa- 
phernes. 

In the meantime, after he had left Sicily, Nikias 
was so cautious that the Syracusans thought him 
cowardly, and provoked a battle with him close to 
their own walls. He defeated them, besieged their 
city, and had almost taken it, when a Spartan and 
Corinthian fleet, headed by Gylippus, came out, 
forced their way through the Athenians, and 
brought relief to the city. More reinforcements 
came out to Athens, and there was a great sea- 
fight in front of the harbor at Syracuse, which 
ended in the total and miserable defeat of the 
Athenians, so that the army was obliged to retreat 
from Syracuse, and give up the siege. They had 
no food, nor any means of getting home, and all 
they could do was to make their way back into the 
part of the island that was friendly to them. Gy- 
lippus and the Syracusans tried to block their way, 
but old Nikias showed himself firm and undaunted 
in the face of misfortune, and they forced their 
way on for three or four days, in great suffering 
from hunger and thirst, till at last they were all 
hemmed into a small hollow valley, shut in by 
rocks, where the Syracusans shot them down as 
they came to drink at the stream, so thirsty that 



212 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

they seemed not to care much so long as they could 
drink. Upon this, Nikias thought it best to lay 
down his arms and surrender. All the remnant of 
the army were enclosed in a great quarry at Epi- 
polse, the sides of which were 100 feet high, and 
fed on a scanty allowance of bread and water, while 
the victors considered what was to be done with 
them, for in these heathen times there was no law 
of mercy for a captive, however bravely he might 
have fought. Gylippus wanted to save Nikias, for 
the pleasure of showing off so noble a prisoner at 
Sparta ; but some of the Syracusans, who had been 
on the point of betraying their city to him, were 
afraid that their treason would be known, and 
urged that he should be put to death with his fel- 
low-general; and the brave, honest, upright old 
man was therefore slain with his companion De- 
mosthenes. 

For seventy days the rest remained in the dismal 
quarry, scorched by the sun, half-starved and rapid- 
ly dying off, until they were publicly sold as slaves, 
when many of the Athenians gained the favor of 
their masters by entertaining them by repeating the 
poetry of their tragedians, especially of Euripides, 
whose works had not yet been acted in Sicily. 
Some actually thus gained their freedom from their 



The Expedition to Sicilyo 



213 



masters, and could return to Athens to thank the 
poet whose verses, stored in their memory, had 
been their ransom. 

All the history of the Peloponnesian war is writ- 
ten by Thukydides, himself a brave Athenian sol- 
dier and statesman, who had a great share in all 
the affairs of the time, and well knew all the men 
whom he describes. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SHORE OF THE GOAT'S RIVER. 

B.C. 406—402. 

STILL the war went on, the Athenians holding 
out steadily, but the Spartans beginning to 
care more for leadership than for Greece, and so 
making league with the Persians. Alkibiades was 
forgiven and called back after a time, and he 
gained numerous towns and islands back again for 
the Athenians, so that he sailed into the Piraeus 
with a fleet, made up by his own ships and prizes to 
full two hundred sail, all decked with purple, gold, 
and silver, and doubling what had been lost in the 
unhappy Sicilian enterprise; but his friends were 
sorry that it was what they called an unlucky day 
- — namely, that on which every year the statue of 
Pallas Athene was stripped of its ornaments to be 
dusted, washed, and repaired, and on which her 

214 



The Shore of the Goafs River. 215 

worshipers always avoided beginning anything or 
doing any business. 

A very able man named Lysander, of the royal 
line, though not a king, had come into command at 
Sparta, and he had a sea-fight at Notium, just 
opposite to Ephesus, with the Athenians, and 
gained no very great advantage, but enough to 
make the discontent and distrust always felt for 
Alkibiades break out again, so that he was removed 
from the command and sailed away to the Cher- 
sonese, where in the time of his exile he had built 
himself a sort of little castle looking out on the 
strait. 

Konon was the name of the next commander of 
the fleet, which consisted of 110 ships, with which 
he met the Spartan Kallikratidas with only fifty, 
near the three little islets called Arginusse, near 
Malea. The numbers were so unequal that the 
Spartan was advised not to fight, but he answered 
that u his death would not hurt Sparta, but dis- 
honor would hurt him." The Athenians gained a 
complete victory, Kallikratidas was killed, and the 
whole Spartan fleet broken up ; but the Athenian 
fleet lost a great many men by a violent storm, 
which hindered the vessels from coming to the aid 



216 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

of those which had been disabled, and which there- 
fore sunk in the tempest. 

The relations of the men who had been drowned 
called for a trial of the commanders for neglecting 
to save the lives of their fellow-citizens, and there 
was such a bad spirit of party feeling in Athens at 
the time that they were actually condemned to 
death, all except Konon, though happily they were 
out of reach, and their sentence could not be 
executed. Lysander was, in the meantime, hard at 
work to collect a fresh fleet from the Spartan allies 
and to build new ships, for which he obtained 
money from the Persians at Sardis, where the 
satrap at that time was Cyrus, the son of Darius, 
the Great King, a clever prince, who understood 
something of Greek courage, and saw that the best 
thing for Persia was to keep the Greeks fighting 
with one another, so that no one state should be 
mightiest, or able to meddle with the Persian 
domains in Asia Minor. He gave Lysander the 
means of adding to his forces, and with his new 
fleet he plundered the shores of the islands of 
Salamis and Euboea, and even of Attica itself, to 
insult the Athenians. Their fleet came out to 
drive him off. It had just been agreed by the 
Athenians that every prisoner they might take in 



The Shore of the Goafs River. 217 

the fight they expected should have his right 
thumb cut off, to punish the Greeks who had taken 
Persian gold. Lysander sailed away, with the 
Athenian fleet persuing him up to the Hellespont, 
where he took the city of Lampsacus and plun- 
dered it before they came up, and anchored at a 
place called iEgos Potami, or the Goat's River, 
about two miles from Sestos. In the morning 
Lysander made all his men eat their first meal and 
then go on board, but gave orders that no ship 
should stir from its place. The Athenians too 
embarked, rowed up to Lampsacus and defied 
them ; but as no Spartan vessel moved, they went 
back again to their anchorage, a mere open shore 
where there were no houses, so that all the crews 
went off to Sestos, or in search of villages inland, 
to buy provisions. The very same thing happened 
the next day. The challenge was not accepted by 
the Spartans, and the Athenians thought them 
afraid, grew more careless, and went further away 
from their ships. But on the hills above stood the 
little castle of Alkibiades, who could look down on 
the strait, see both fleets, and perceive that the 
Spartans sent swift galleys out each day to steal 
after the Athenians, so that they would be quite 
sure to take advantage of their foolish security. 



218 Young Folks' History of G-reece* 

He could not bear to see his fellow-citizens ruining 
themselves, and came down to warn them and beg 
them to move into Sestos, where they would have 
the harbor to shelter them and the city behind 
them ; but the generals scoffed at him, and bade him 
remember that they were commanders now, not he, 
and he went back to his castle, knowing only too 
well what would happen. 

Till the fifth day all went on as before, but then 
Lysander ordered his watching galley to hoist a 
shield as a signal as soon as the Athenians had all 
gone off to roam the country in search of food, and 
then he spread out his fleet to its utmost width, and 
came rowing out with his 180 ships to fall upon the 
deserted Athenians. Not one general was at his 
post, except Konon, and he, with the eight galleys 
he could man in haste, sailed out in all haste — not 
to fight, for that was of no use, but to escape. 
Almost every vessel was found empty by the Spar- 
tans, taken or burnt, and then all the men were 
sought one by one as they were scattered over the 
country, except a few who were near enough to 
take refuge in the fort of Alkibiades. Out of the 
eight ships that got away, one went straight to 
Athens to carry the dreadful news ; but Konon 
took the other seven with him to the island of 



The Shore of the Goafs River, 219 

Cyprus, thinking that thus he could do better for 
his country than share the ruin that now must 
come upon her. 

It was night when the solitary ship reached the 
Pirams with the dreadful tidings ; but they seemed 
to rush through the city, for everywhere there 
broke out a sound of weeping and wailing for hus- 
bands, fathers, brothers, and kinsmen lost, and men 
met together in the market-places to mourn and 
consult what could be done next. None went to 
rest that night ; but the fleet was gone, and all 
their best men with it, and Lysander was coming 
down on Athens, putting down all her friends in 
the islands by the way, and driving the Athenian 
garrison on before him into Athens. Before long 
he was at the mouth of the Piraeus himself with his 
150 galleys, and while he shut the Athenians in by 
sea, the Spartan army and its allies blockaded them 
by land. 

If they held out, there was no hope of help ; delay 
would only make the conquerors more bitter; so 
they offered to make terms, and very hard these 
were. The Athenians were to pull down a mile on 
each side of the Long Walls, give up all their ships 
except twelve, recall all their banished men, and 
follow the fortunes of the Spartans. They were 



220 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

very unwilling to accept these conditions, but 
their distress compelled them; and Lysander had 
the Long Walls pulled down to the sound of musio 
on the anniversary of the day of the battle of Sala- 
mis. Then he overthrew the old constitution of 
Solon, and set up a government of thirty men, who 
were to keep the Athenians under the Spartan 
yoke, and who were so cruel and oppressive that 
they were known afterwards as the thirty tyrants. 
So in 404 ended the Peloponnesian war, after 
lasting twenty-seven years. 

The Athenians were most miserable, and began 
to think whether Alkibiades would deliver them, 
and the Spartans seem to have feared the same. 
He did not think himself safe in Europe after the 
ruin at iEgos Potami, and had gone to the Persian 
governor on the Phrygian coast, who received him 
kindly, but was believed to have taken the pay of 
either the Spartans or the thirty tyrants, to murder 
him, for one night the house where he was sleeping 
was set on fire, and on waking he found it sur- 
rounded with enemies. He wrapped his garment 
round his left arm, took his sword in his hand, and 
broke through the flame. None" of the murderers 
durst come near him, but they threw darts and 
stones at him so thickly that at last he fell, and 



The Shore of the Groat's River. 221 

thejr despatched him. Timandra, the last of his 
wives, took up his body, wrapped it in her own 
mantle, and buried it in a city called Melissa. 
Such was the sad end of the spoilt child of Athens. 
He left a son at Athens, whom the Thirty tried to 
destroy, but who escaped their fury, although 
during these evil times the Thirty actually put to 
death no less than fourteen hundred citizens of 
Athens, many of them without any proper trial, 
and drove five thousand more into banishment 
during the eight months that their power lasted. 
Then Thrasybulus and other exiles, coming home, 
helped to shake off their yoke and establish the old 
democracy ; but even then Athens was in a weak, 
wretched state, and Sparta had all the power. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

. THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND. 
B.C. 402 — 399. 

JUST as Greece was quieted by the end of the 
Peloponnesian war, the olcf King of Persia, 
Darius Nothus, died and his eldest son, Artaxerxes 
Mnemon, came to the throne. He was the eldest, 
but his brother Cyrus, who had been born after his 
father began to reign, declared that this gave the 
best right, and resolved to march from Sardis into 
Persia to gain the kingdom for himself by the help 
of a hired body of Greek soldiers. Clearchus, a 
banished Spartan, undertook to get them together, 
and he made such descriptions of the wealth they 
would get in the East, that 11,000 of the bravest 
men in Greece came together for the purpose, and 
among them Xenophon, the pupil of Socrates, who 
has written the history of the expedition, as well as 

222 



The Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 223 

that of the later years of the Peloponnesian Avar. 
Xenophon was a horseman, but most of the troops 
were foot soldiers, and they were joined by a great 
body of Asiatics, raised by Cyrus himself. They 
were marched across Syria, crossed the present 
river Euphrates at the ford Thapsacus, and at 
Cunaxa, seven miles from Babylon, they met the 
enormous army which Artaxerxes had raised. The 
Greeks beat all who met them ; but in the mean- 
time Cyrus was killed, and his whole army broke 
up and fled, so that the Greeks were left to them- 
selves in the very heart of the enemy's country, 
without provisions, money, or guides. 

Artaxerxes sent messages pretending to wish to 
make terms with them and guide them safely back 
to their own country, provided they would do no 
barm on the way, and they willingly agreed to 
this, and let themselves be led where they were 
told it would be easier to find food for them ; but 
this was across the great river Tigris, over a bridge 
of boats ; and a few days after, Clearchus and the 
other chief officers were invited to the Persian 
camp to meet the king, and there seized and made 
prisoners. A message came directly after to the 
Greeks to bid them deliver up their arms, as they 



224 Young Folks' History of G-reece. 

belonged to the Great King, having once belonged 
to his slave Cyrus. 

To deliver up their arms was the last thing they 
intended; but their plight was dreadful — left 
alone eight months' march by the shortest way 
from home, with two great rivers and broad tracts 
of desert between it and themselves, and many 
nations, all hating them, in the inhabited land, 
with no guides, no generals, and ten times their 
number of Persian troops waiting to fall on them. 
All were in dismay ; hardly a fire was lighted to 
cook their supper ; each man lay down to rest where 
he was, yet hardly anyone could sleep for fear and 
anxiety, looking for shame, death, or slavery, and 
never expecting to see Greece, wife, or children 
again. 

But that night Xenophon made up his mind to 
do what he could to save his countrymen. The only 
hope was in some one taking the lead, and, as the 
Greeks had been true to their oaths throughout 
the whole march, he believed the gods would help 
them. So he called the chief of the officers still re- 
maining together, and put them in mind that they 
might still hope. They were so much stronger and 
braver than the Persians, that if only they did not 
lose heart and separate, they could beat off almost 



The Retreat of the Ten Thousand, 227 

any attack. As to provisions, they would seize 
them, and the rivers which they could not cross 
should be their guides, for they would track them 
up into the hills, where they would become shallow. 
Only every soldier must swear to assist in keeping 
up obedience, and then they would show Arta- 
xerxes that, though he had seized Clearchus, they 
had ten thousand as good as he. The army 
listened, recovered hope and spirit, swore to all he 
asked, and one of the most wonderful marches in 
the world began. Cheirisophus, the eldest officer, 
a Spartan, took the command in the centre ; 
Xenophon, as one of the youngest was in the rear. 
They crossed the Zab, their first barrier, and then 
went upwards along the banks of the Tigris. The 
Persians hovered about them, and always attacked 
them every morning. Then the Greeks halted 
under any shelter near at hand, and fought them 
till towards evening. They were sure to fall back, 
as they were afraid to sleep near the Greeks, for 
fear of a night attack. Then the Greeks marched 
on for a good distance before halting to sup and 
sleep, and were able again to make a little way in 
the morning before the enemy attacked them 
again. 

So they went on till they came to the mountains. 



228 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

where dwelt wild tribes whom the Great King 
called his subjects, but who did not obey him at all. 
However, they were robbers and very fierce, and 
stood on the steep heights shooting arrows and 
rolling down stones, so that the passage through 
their land cost the Greeks more men than all their 
march through Persia. On they went, through 
Armenia and over the mountains, generally having 
to make their way through snow and ice, until at 
last, when they were climbing up Mount Theche, 
those behind heard a shout of joy, and the cry, 
"The sea, the sea!" rang from rank to rank. 
To every Greek the sea was like home, and it 
seemed to them as if their troubles were over. 
They wept and embraced one another, and built up 
a pile of stones with a trophy of arms on the top, 
offering sacrifice to the gods for having so far 
brought them safely. 

It was, however, only the Black Sea, the Pontus 
Euxinus, and far to the eastward ; and, though the 
worst was over, they had still much to undergo 
while they were skirting the coast of Asia Minor. 
When they came to the first Greek colony — 
namely, Trapezus or Trebizond — they had been a 
full year marching through an enemy's country ; 
and yet out of the 11,000 who had fought at 



The Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 229 

Cunaxa there were still 10,000 men safe and well, 
and they had saved all the women, slaves, and 
baggage they had taken with them. Moreover, 
though they came from many cities, and both 
Spartans and Athenians were among them, there 
never had been any quarreling ; and the only time 
when there had been the least dispute had been 
when Xenophon thought Cheirisophus a little too 
hasty in suspecting a native guide. 

Tired out as the soldiers were, they wanted, as 
soon as they reached the iEgean Sea, to take ship 
and sail home ; but they had no money, and the 
merchant ships would not give them a free passage, 
even if there had been ships enough, and Cheiriso- 
phus went to Byzantium to try tD obtain some, 
while the others marched to wait for him at Cera- 
sus, the place whence were brought the first cherries, 
which take their name from it. He failed, how- 
ever, in getting any, and the Greeks had to make 
their way on ; but they had much fallen away from 
the noble spirit they had shown at first. Any 
country that did not belong to Greeks they plun- 
dered, and they were growing careless as to whether 
the places in their way were Greek or not. Cheir- 
isophus died of a fever, and Xenophon^ though 
grieved at the change in the spirit of the army, 



230 Young Folks' History of Greece, 

continued for very pity in command. They hired 
themselves out to fight the battle of a Thracian 
prince, but, when his need of them was over, he 
dismissed them without any pay at all, and Xeno- 
phon was so poor that he was forced to sell the 
good horse that had carried him all the way from 
Armenia. 

However, there was a spirited young king at 
Sparta, named Agesilaus, who was just old enough 
to come forward and take the command, and he 
was persuading his fellow-citizens, that now they 
had become the leading state in Greece, they ought 
to go and deliver the remaining Greek colonies in 
Asia Minor from the yoke of Persia, as Athens had 
done by the Ionians. They therefore decided on 
taking the remains of the 10,000 — now only 6000 
— into their pay, and the messengers who came to 
engage them bought Xenophon's horse and restored 
it to him. Xenophon would not, however, con- 
tinue with the band after he had conducted it to 
Pergamus, where they were to meet the Spartan 
general who was to take charge of them. On their 
way they plundered the house of a rich Persian, 
and gave a large share of the spoil to him as a token 
of gratitude for the wisdom and constancy that 
had carried them through so many trials- 



The Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 231 

It had been his strong sense of religion and trust 
in the care of the gods which had borne him up ; 
and the first thing he did was to go and dedicate 
his armor and an offering of silver at the temple of 
Diana at Ephesus. This temple had grown up 
round a black stone image, very ugly, but which 
was said to have fallen from the sky, and was per- 
haps a meteoric stone. A white marble quarry 
near the city had furnished the materials for a tem- 
ple so grand and beautiful that it was esteemed one 
of the seven wonders of the world. 

After thus paying his vows, Xenophon returned 
to Athens, whence he had been absent two years 
and a-half. He not only wrote the history of this 
expedition, but a life of the first great Cyrus of 
Persia, which was meant not so much as real his- 
tory, as a pattern of how kings ought to be bred 
up. 



o 



CHAPTER XXTTT. 

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 
B.C. 399. 

F the men who sought after God in the 
darkness, "if haply they might feel after 
Him," none had come so near the truth as Socrates, 
a sculptor by trade, and yet a great philosopher, 
and, so far as we can see, the wisest and best man 
who ever grew up without any guide but nature 
and conscience. Even the oracle at Delphi de- 
clared that he was the wisest of men, because he 
did not fancy he knew what he did not know, and 
did not profess to have any wisdom of his own. It 
was quite true — all his thinking had only made 
him quite sure that he knew nothing ; but he was 
also sure that he had an inward voice within him, 
telling him which was the way in which he should 
walk. He did not think much about the wild tales 

232 



The Death of Socrates. 



233 



of the Greek gods and goddesses ; he seems to have 
considered them as fancies that had grown up on 
some forgotten truth, and he said a healthy mind 
would not dwell upon them ; but he was quite sure 
that above all these there was one really true Most 
High God, who governed the w^orld, rewarded the 
good, and punished the bad, and sent him the in- 
ward voice, which he tried to obey to the utmost 
of his power, and by so doing 
no doubt his inward sight 
grew clearer and clearer. 
Even in his home his gentle- 
ness and patience were noted, 
so that when his scolding 
wife Xantippe, after railing 
at him sharply, threw some 
water at his head, he only 
smiled, and said, "After 
thunder follows rain." He 
did not open a school under a portico, but, as he 
did his work, all the choicest spirits of Greece re- 
sorted to him to argue out these questions in search 
of truth ; and many accounts of these conversa- 
tions have been preserved to us by his two best 
pupils, Plato and Xenopbon. 

But in the latter days of the Peloponnesian war. 




SOCRATES. 



234 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

when the Athenians were full of bitterness, and had 
no great deeds to undertake outside their city, a set 
of arguing pretenders to philosophy arose, who were 
called the Sophists, and who spent their time in 
mere empty talk, often against the gods ; and the 
great Socrates was mixed up in people's fancy with 
them. A comic writer arose, named Aristophanes, 
who, seeing the Athenians fallen from the great- 
ness of their fathers, tried to laugh them into shame 
at themselves. He particularly disliked Euripides, 
because his tragedies seemed, like the Sophists, not 
to respect the gods ; and he also more justly hated 
Alkibiades for his overbearing ways, and his want 
of real respect for gods or men. It was very hard 
on Socrates that the faults of his pupils should be 
charged against him ; but Aristophanes had set all 
Athens laughing by a comedy called "The Clouds," 
in which a good-for-nothing young man, evidently 
meant for Alkibiades, gets his father into debt by 
buying horses, and, under the teaching of Socrates, 
learns both to cheat his creditors and to treat re- 
spect for his father as a worn-out notion. The 
beauty and the lisp of Alkibiades were imitated so 
as to make it quite plain who was meant by the 
youth ; and Socrates himself was evidently repre- 
sented by an actor in a hideous comic mask, 



The Death of Socrates. 235 

caricaturing the philosopher's snub nose and ugly 
features. The play ended by a young man's father 
threatening to burn down the house of Socrates, 
with him in it. This had been written twenty 
3^ears before, but it had been acted and admired 
again and again, together with the other comedies 
of Aristophanes — one about a colony of birds who 
try to build a city in the air, and of whom the 
chorus was composed ; and another, called " The 
Frogs," still more droll, and all full of attacks on 
the Sophists. 

Thus the Athenians had a general notion that 
Socrates was a corrupter of youth and a despiser of 
the gods, for in truth some forms of worship, like 
the orgies of Bacchus, and other still worse rites 
which had been brought in from the East, were 
such that no good man could approve them. One 
of the thirty tyrants had at one time been a pupil 
of his, and this added to the ill-feeling against him ; 
and while Xenophon was still away in Asia, in the 
year 399, the philosopher was brought to trial on 
three points, namely, that he did not believe in the 
gods of Athens, that he brought in new gods, and 
that he misled young men ; and for this his accus- 
ers demanded that he should be put to death. 

Socrates pleaded his own cause before the coun- 



236 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

cil of the Areopagus. He flatly denied unbelief in 
the gods of his fathers, but he defended his belief 
in his genius or indwelling voice, and said that in 
this he was only like those who drew auguries from 
the notes of birds, thunder, and the like ; and as 
for his guidance of young men, he called on his ac- 
cusers to show whether he had ever led any man 
from virtue to vice. One of them answered that he 
knew those who obeyed and followed Socrates more 
than their own parents ; to which he replied that 
such things sometimes happened in other matters 
— men consulted physicians about their health 
rather than their fathers, and obeyed their generals 
in war, not their fathers ; and so in learning, they 
might follow him rather than their fathers. " Be- 
cause I am thought to have some power of teaching 
youth, O my judges ! " he ended, " is that a reason 
why I should suffer death ? My accusers may pro- 
cure that judgment, but hurt me they cannot. To 
fear death is to seem wise without being so, for it 
is pretending to understand what we know not. 
No man knows what death is, or whether it be not 
our greatest happiness ; yet all fear and shun it." 

His pupil Plato stood up on the platform to de- 
fend him, and began, " O ye Athenians, I am the 
youngest man who ever went up in this place — — " 



The Death of Socrates. 



237 



"No, 170," they cried, with one voice; "the 
youngest who ever went down ! " They would 
not hear a word from him ; and 380 voices sen- 
tenced the great philosopher to die, after the Athe- 
nian fashion, by being poisoned with hemlock. He 
disdained to plead for a lessening of the penalty ; 
but it could not be carried out at once, because a 
ship had just been sent to Delos 
with offerings,and for the thirty 
days while this was gone no one 
could be put to death. Socrates 
therefore was put in prison, with 
chains upon his ankles ; but all 
his friends were able to come 
and visit him, and one of them, 
named Krito, hoped to have 
contrived his escape by bribing 
the jailer, but he refused to PLATO ' 

make anyone guilty of a breach of the laws for the 
sake of a life which must be near its close, for he 
was not far from seventy years old ; and when one 
of his friends began to weep at the thought of his 
dying innocent, "What!" he said, "would you 
think it better for me to die guilty ? " 

When the ship had come back, and the time was 
come, he called all his friends together for a cheer- 




238 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

ful feast, during which he discoursed to them as 
usual. All the words that fell from him were care- 
fully stored up, and recorded by Plato in a dialogue, 
which is one of the most valuable things that have 
come down to us from Greek times. It was not 
Socrates, said the philosopher, whom they would 
lay in the grave. Socrates' better part, and true 
self, would be elsewhere ; and all of them felt sure 
that in that unknown world, as they told him, it 
must fare well with one like him. He begged them, 
for their own sakes, never to forget the lessons he 
had taught them ; and when the time had come, he 
drank the hemlock as if it had been a cup wine : 
he then walked up and down the room for a little 
while, bade his pupils remember that this was the 
real deliverance from all disease and impurity, and 
then, as the fatal sleep benumbed him, he lay 
clown, bidding Krito not forget a vow he had made 
to one of the gods ; and so he slept into death. 
"Thus," said Plato, "died the man who, of all 
with whom we were acquainted, was in death the 
noblest, in life the wisest and best." 

Plato himself carried on much of the teaching 
of his master, and became the founder of a sect of 
philosophy which taught that, come what may, vir- 
tue is that which should, above all, be sought for 




THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 



The Death of Socrates 241 

as making man noblest, and that no pain, loss or 
grief should be shunned for virtue's sake. His fol- 
lowers were called Stoics, from their fashion of 
teaching in the porticos or porches, which in Greek 
were named stoai. Their great opponents were the 
Epicureans, or followers of a philosopher by name 
Epicurus, who held that as man's life is short, and 
as he knew not whence he came, nor whither he 
went, he had better make himself as happy as pos- 
sible, and care for nothing else. Epicurus, indeed, 
declared that only virtue did make men happy ; 
but there was nothing in his teaching to make 
them do anything but what pleased themselves, so 
his philosophy did harm, while that of the Stoics 
did good. A few Pythagoreans, who believed in 
the harmony of the universe, still remained ; but so 
long as the world remained in darkness, thinking 

men were generally either Stoics or Epicureans, 

16 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE SUPREMACY OF SPAKTA. 
B.C. 396. 

THE ablest man just at this time in Greece was 
Agesilaus, one of the kings of Sparta. He 
was small, weakly, and lame, but full of courage, 
and an excellent general ; and though he was as 
plain and hardy as suited with Spartan discipline, 
he had a warm, kind, tender heart, and was not 
ashamed to show it, as some of the Spartans were. 
So that, when some ambassadors came to see him, 
they found him riding on a stick to please his 
children ; and again, when a trial of a distinguished 
man was going on in his absence, he wrote, " If he 
be not guilty, spare him for his own sake ; if he be 
guilty, spare him for mine." 

He was young, and full of fire and spirit, when 
the Spartans resolved to try to free the Greek 

242 



The Supremacy of Sparta. 243 

colonies in Asia Minor from the Persians, by an 
army under Iiis command. Xenophon had been so 
much grieved by his master Socrates' death that he 
would not remain at Athens, but joined his old 
friends once more, and was a great friend of Agesi- 
laus. The Athenians, Corinthians, and Thebans 
were all asked to send troops, but they refused, and 
Agesilaus set sail with 8000 men, meaning to meet 
and take with him the remains of the 10,000, who 
were well used to warfare with the Persians. He 
was the first Greek king who had sailed to Asia 
since the Trojan war, and, in imitation of Agamem- 
non, he stopped at Aulis, in Boeotia, to offer sacri- 
fice to Diana. He dreamt that a message came 
that it ought to be the same sacrifice as Agamem- 
non had made, but he declared that he would not 
act so cruelly towards his own child, and caused a 
white hind to be crowned, and offered as the god- 
dess' chosen offering ; but as this was not the 
usual sacrifice, the Thebans were affronted, and 
threw away the sacrifice as it lay on the altar. 
This was reckoned as a bad omen, and Agesilaus 
went on his way, doubting whether he should meet 
with success. 

He was a man who went very much by omens, 
for after he had landed, had gained several sue- 



244 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

cesses, and was just advancing in Caria, at the sa-> 
crifice he found the liver of one of the victims im- 
perfect, and this decided him on going back to 
Ephesus for the winter, to collect more -horse. 
When he marched on in the spring he was much 
stronger ; he advanced into the Persian territories, 
and defeated the Persians and their allies wherever 
he met them, and at last the satrap Pharnabazus 
begged to have a conference with him, being much 
struck with his valor. 

Agesilaus came first to the place of meeting, and 
having to wait there, sat down on the grass under 
a tree, and began to eat his homely meal of bread 
and an onion. Presently up came the satrap in all 
his splendor, with attendants carrying an umbrella 
over his head, and others bearing rich carpets and 
costly furs for him to sit on, silver and gold plate, 
and rich food and wines. But when he found that 
the little, shabby, plain man under the tree was 
really the mighty king of Sparta, the descendant of 
Hercules, Pharnabazus was ashamed of all his 
pomp, and went down upon the ground by Agesi- 
laus' side, to the great damage, as the Greeks 
delighted to observe, of his fine, delicately-tinted 
robes. He told Agesilaus that he thought this 
attack a bad reward for all the help that the 



The Supremacy of Sparta. 245 

Spartans had had from Persia in the Peloponnesian 
war ; but Agesilaus said that they had been friends 
then, but that as cause of war had arisen it was 
needful to fight, though he was so far from feeling 
enmity that Pharnabazus should find the Greeks 
willing to welcome him, and give him high com- 
mand, if he would come and be a free man among 
them. Pharnabazus answered that as long as he 
held command in the name of the Great King he 
must be at Avar with the foes of Persia, but if 
Artaxerxes should take away his satrapy he would 
come over to the Spartans. Therewith Agesilaus 
shook hands with him, and said, " How much rather 
I woidd have so gallant a man for my friend than 
my enemy?" The young son of the satrap was 
even more taken with the Spartan, and, waiting 
behind his father, ran up to the king, and, accord- 
ing to the Persian offer of friendship, said, U I 
make you my guest," at the same time giving him 
a javelin. Agesilaus looked about for anything 
fine enough to offer the young Persian in return, 
and seeing that a youth in his train had a horse 
with handsome trappings, asked for them, and made 
a gift of them to his new friend. The friendship 
stood the youth in good stead, for when he was 
afterwards driven from home by his brethren, 



246 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Agesilaus welcomed him in Laconia, and was very 
kind to him. The war, however, still continued, 
and Agesilaus gained such successes that the Per- 
sians saw their best hope lay in getting him recalled 
to Greece ; so they sent money in secret to the 
Athenians and their old allies to incite them to 
revolt, and so strong an army was brought together 
that the Spartans sent in haste to recall Agesilaus. 
The summons came just as he was mustering all 
the Greek warriors in Asia Minor for an advance 
into the heart of the empire, and he was much 
disappointed ; but he laughed, and, as Persian coins 
were stamped with the figure of a horseman draw- 
ing the bow, he said he had been defeated by 
10,000 Persian archers. 

He marched home by the way of the Hellespont, 
but before he was past Thrace a great battle had 
been fought close to Corinth, in which the 
Spartans had been victorious and made a great 
slaughter of the allies. But he only thought of 
them as Greeks, not as enemies, and exclaimed, 
"O Greece, how many brave men hast thou lost, 
who might have conquered all Persia!" The 
Thebans had joined the allies against Sparta, and 
the Ephors sent orders to Agesilaus to punish them 
on his way southwards. This he did in the battle 



The Supremacy of Sparta. 247 

of Coronea, in which he was very badly wounded, 
but, after the victory was over, he would not be 
taken to his tent till he had been carried round the 
field to see that every slain Spartan was carried 
away in his armor and not left to the plunderers. 

He then returned to Sparta, where the citizens 
were delighted to see that he had not been spoiled 
by Persian luxury, but lived as plainly as ever, and 
would not let his family dress differently from 
others. He knew what greatness was so well, that 
when he heard Artaxerxes called the Great King, 
he said, " How is he greater than I, unless he be 
the juster ? " 

It should be remembered that Konon, that Athe- 
nian captain who had escaped from .Egos Potami 
with six ships, had gone to the island of Cyprus. 
He persuaded the people of the island of Rhodes to 
revolt from the Spartans, and make friends with 
the Persians. It' is even said that he went to the 
court of Artaxerxes, and obtained leave from him 
to raise ships, with which to attack the Spartans, 
from the colonies which were friendly to Athens, 
yet belonged to the Greek Empire. Pharnabazus 
joined him, and, with eighty-five ships, they cruised 
about in the JEgean Sea, and near Cnidus they 
entirely defeated the Spartan fleet. It was com- 



248 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

manded by Pisander, Agesilaus 1 brother-in-law, 
who held by his ship to the last, and died like a 
true Spartan, sword in hand. 

After this Konon drove out many Spartan gover- 
nors from the islands of the iEgean, and, sailing to 
Corinth, encouraged the citizens to hold out against 
Sparta, after which Pharnabazus went home, but 
Konon returned with the fleet to the Piraeus, and 
brought money and aid to build up the Long Walls 
again, after they had been ten years in ruins. The 
crews of the ships and the citizens of Athens all 
worked hard, the rejoicing was immense, and 
Konon was looked on as the great hero and bene- 
factor of Athens ; but, as usual, before long the 
Athenians grew jealous of him and drove him out, 
so that he ended his life an exile, most likely in 
Cyprus. 

It was no wonder that Xenophon's heart turned 
against the city that thus treated her great men, 
though he ought not to have actually fought 
against her, as he did under Agesilaus, whom he 
greatly loved. The chief scene of the war was 
round Corinth ; but at last both parties were 
wearied, and a peace was made between Athens 
and Sparta and the Persian Empire. Artaxerxes 
kept all the Greek cities in Asia and the islands of 



The Supremacy of Sparta. 249 

Cyprus and Clazomene, and all the other isles and 
colonies were declared free from the power of any 
city, except the isles of Lomnos, Imbros, and 
Scyros, which were still to belong to Athens. 
Sparta required of Thebes to give up her power 
over the lesser cities of Boeotia, but Sparta herself 
did not give up Messenia and the other districts in 
the Peloponnesus, so that she still remained the 
strongest. This was called the peace of Anta- 
leidas. 

Xenophon did not go back to Athens, but settled 
on a farm near Elis, where he built a little temple 
to Diana, in imitation of the one at Ephesus, and 
spent his time in husbandry, in hunting, and in 
writing his histories, and also treatises on dogs and 
horses. Once a-year he held a great festival in 
honor of Diana, offering her the tithe of all his 
produce, and feasting all the villagers around on 
barley meal, wheaten bread, meat, and venison, the 
last of which was obtained at a great hunting 
match conducted by Xenophon himself and his 
sons. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE TWO THEBAN FKIENDS. 
B.C. 387 — 362. 

T3 Y the peace of Antaleidas things had been so 
-*-> settled that the Spartans had the chief power 
over Greece, and they used it in their proud, harsh 
way. In the year 387 they called the Thebans to 
assist in besieging the city of Mantinea, in a valley 
between Argos and Arcadia. The Mantineans 
sallied out, and there was a battle, in which they 
were defeated ; but in the course of it a Theban 
youth of a rich and noble family, named Pelopidas, 
was surrounded by enemies. He fought desperate- 
ly, and only fell at last under seven wounds just as 
another Theban, a little older, named Epaminon- 
das, broke in to his rescue, and fought over him 
until the Spartans made in and bore them off, but 
not till Epaminondas had likewise been badly 

250 



The Two Theban Friends. 251 

wounded. He was the son of a poor but noble 
father, said to be descended from one of the men 
who had sprung from the dragon's teeth ; and he 
had been well taught, and was an earnest philoso- 
pher of the Pythagorean school, striving to the ut- 
most of his power to live a good and virtuous life. 
A close friendship grew up between him and Pelo- 
pidas, though the one loved books, and the other 
dogs and horses ; but Pelopidas tried to be as up- 
right and noble as his friend, and, though a very 
rich man, lived as hardly and sparingly as did Epam- 
inondas, using his wealth to help the poor. When 
some foolish friends asked him why he did not use 
his riches for his own ease and pomp, he laughed at 
them, and pointing to a helpless cripple, said that 
riches were only useful to a man like that. 

Every high-spirited Theban hated the power that 
Sparta had taken over their free state, and wanted 
to shake it off ; but some of those who were bribed 
by Sparta sent word of their intentions to a Spar- 
tan general in the neighborhood, whereupon he 
came down on Thebes in the middle of a festival, 
seized the citadel called the Cadmea, put in a Spar- 
tan garrison, and drove 300 of the best Thebans into 
exile. Pelopidas w r as among them, while Epam- 
inondas was thought of only as a poor student, 



252 Young Folks 9 History of Greece. 

and was unnoticed ; but he went quietly on advis- 
ing the Theban young men to share the warlike 
exercises of the Spartans in the Cadmea, so as to 
get themselves trained to arms in case there should 
be a chance for fighting for their freedom. In' the 
fourth year of the exile, Pelopidas wrote to beg his 
friend to join in a plot by which some of the ban- 
ished were to creep into the city, go to a banquet 
that was to be given to the chief friends of the 
Spartans disguised as women, kill them, proclaim 
liberty, raise the citizens, and expel the Spartans. 
But Epaminondas would have nothing to do with 
a scheme that involved falsehood and treachery, 
however much he longed to see his country free. 
But on a dark, winter evening, Pelopidas and 
eleven more young exiles came one by one into 
Thebes, in the disguise of hunters, and met at the 
house of the friend who was going to give the feast. 
They were there dressed in robes and veils, and in 
the height of the mirth the host brought them in, 
and they fell upon the half-tipsy guests and slew 
them, while Pelopidas had gone to the house of the 
most brave and sober among them, challenged him, 
and killed him in fair fight. Then they shouted, 
" Freedom ! Down with the foe ! " The citizens 
rose, Epaminondas among the first ; the rest of the 



The Two Theban Friends. 253 

exiles marched in at daybreak, and the Cadmea 
was besieged until the Spartans were obliged to 
inarch out, and Thebes was left to its own govern- 
ment by Boeotarchs, or rulers of Boeotia, for a year 
at a time, of whom Pelipodas was at once chosen 
to be one. 

Of course there was a war, in which the Thebans 
were helped by Athens, but more from hatred to 
Sparta than love to Thebes. After six years there 
was a conference to arrange for a peace, and Epam- 
inondas, who was then Bceotarch, spoke so well 
as to amaze all hearers* Agesilaus demanded that 
the Thebans should only make terms for them- 
selves, and give up the rest of Boeotia, and Epam- 
inondas would not consent unless in like manner 
Sparta gave up the rule over the other places in 
Laconia. The Athenians would not stand by the 
Thebans, and all the allies made peace, so that 
Thebes was left alone to resist Sparta, and Epami- 
nondas had to hurry home to warn her to defend 
herself. 

The only thing in favor of Thebes was that 
Agesilaus' lame leg had become so diseased that he 
could not for five years go out to war ; but the 
other king, Cleombrotus, was at the head of 11,000 
men marching into Boeotia, and Epaminondas could 



254 Young Folks 9 History of Greece. 

only get together 6000, with whom he met them 
at Leuctra. No one doubted how the battle would 
end, for the Spartans had never yet been beaten, 
even by the Athenians, when they had the larger 
numbers, and, besides, the quiet scholar Epaminon- 
das had never been thought of as a captain. The 
omens went against the Thebans, but he said he 
knew no token that ought to forbid a man from 
fighting for his country. Pelopidas commanded 
the horsemen, and Epaminondas drew up his troop 
in a column fifty men deep, with which he dashed 
at the middle of the Spartan army, which was only 
three lines deep, and Pelopidas' cavalry hovered 
about to cut them down when they were broken. 
The plan succeeded perfectly. Cleombrotus was 
carried dying from the field, and Epaminondas had 
won the most difficult victory ever yet gained by a 
Greek. So far from being uplifted by it, all he 
said was, how glad he was that his old father and 
mother would be pleased. The victory had made 
Thebes the most powerful city in Greece, and he 
was the leading man in Thebes for some time ; but 
he had enemies, who thought him too gentle with 
his foes, whether men or cities, and one year, in the 
absence of Pelopidas, they chose him to be inspector 
of the cleanliness of the streets, thinking to put a 



The Tivo Theban Friends. 255 

slur on him ; but he fulfilled the duties of it so per- 
fectly that he made the office an honorable one. 

Pelopidas was soon after sent on a message to 
Alexander, the savage tyrant of Thessaly, who 
seized him and put him in chains in a dismal dun- 
geon. The Theban army marched to deliver him, 
Epaminondas among them as a common soldier ; 
but the two Boeotarchs in command managed so ill 
that they were beset by the Thessalian horsemen 
and forced to turn back. In the retreat they were 
half-starved, and fell into such danger and distress, 
that all cried out for Epaminondas to lead them, 
and he brought them out safely. The next year 
he was chosen Bceotarch, again attacked Thessaly, 
and, by the mere dread of his name, made the 
tyrant yield up Pelopidas, and beg for a truce* 
Pelopidas brought home such horrible accounts of 
the cruelties of Alexander, that as soon as the 
truce was over, 7000 men, with him at their head, 
invaded Thessaly, and won the battle of Cynoce- 
phalae, or the Dogs' Heads. Here Pelopidas was 
killed, to the intense grief of the army, who cut 
their hair and their horses' manes and tails, lighted 
no fire, and tasted no food on that sad night after 
their victory, and great was the mourning at 
Thebes for the brave and upright man who had 



256 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

been thirteen times Bceotarch. Epaminondas was 
at sea with the fleet he had persuaded the Thebans 
to raise ; but the next year he was sent into the 
Peloponnesus to defend the allies there against the 
Spartans. He had almost taken the city itself, 
when the army hastened back to defend it, under 
the command of Agesilaus, who had recovered and 
taken the field again. 

Close to Mantinea, where Epaminondas had 
fought his first battle, he had to fight again with 
the only general who had as yet a fame higher than 
his — namely, Agesilaus — and Xenophon was liv- 
ing near enough to watch the battle. It was a 
long, fiercely-fought combat, but at last the Spar- 
tans began to give way and broke their ranks, still, 
however, flinging javelins, one of which struck 
Epaminondas full in the breast, and broke as he 
fell, leaving a long piece of the shaft fixed in the 
wound. His friends carried him away up the hill- 
side, where he found breath to ask whether his 
shield were safe, and when it was held up to him, 
lie looked down on the Spartans in full flight, and 
knew he had won the day. He was in great pain, 
and he was told that to draw out the spear would 
probably kill him at once. He said, therefore, that 
he must wait till he could speak to the two next in 







THE DEATH OF EPAMINONDAS. 
17 



The Two Theban Friends. 259 

command ; and when he was told that they were 
both slain, he said, "Then you must make peace," 
for he knew no one was left able to contend against 
Agesilaus. As his friends wept, he said, " This day 
is not the end of my life, but the beginning of my 
happiness and completion of my glory ; " and when 
they bewailed that he had no child, he said, 
"Leuctra and Mantinea are daughters enough to 
keep my name alive." Then, as those who stood 
round faltered, unable to resolve to draw out the 
dart, he pulled it out himself with a firm hand, and 
the rush of blood that followed ended one of the 
most beautiful lives ever spent by one who was a 
law unto himself. He was buried where he died, 
and a pillar was raised over the spot bearing the 
figure of a dragon, in memory of his supposed 
dragon lineage. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

PHILIP OF MACEDON. 
B.C. 364. 

PEACE was made as Epaminondas desired, and 
Boeotia never produced another great man, as 
indeed, the inhabitants had always been slow and 
dull, so that a Boeotian was a by-word for stu- 
pidity. The only other great Boeotian was the 
poet Pindar, who was living at this time. 

The fifteen years of Theban power had weakened 
Sparta ; but Agesilaus persuaded the Ephors to 
send him to assist Tachos, who had revolted from 
the Persians and made himself king of Egypt, and 
who promised to pay the Spartans well for their aid. 
When he sent his officers to receive the Spartan 
king who had achieved the greatest fame of any 
man then living, they absolutely burst out laughs 

ing at the sight of the little, lame man, now more 

260 



Philip of Macedon. 261 

than eighty years old, and as simply clad as ever ; 
and he was much vexed and angered that he was 
not made commander of the army, but only of the 
foreign allies ; and when Tachos went against his 
advice, and chose to march into Phoenicia, he 
went over to the cause of another Egyptian prince 
a cousin to Tachos, named Nectanebes, whom he 
helped to gain the crown of Egypt, thus breaking 
his promises in a way which we are sorry should 
have been the last action of his life. The next 
winter he embarked to return home, but he was 
driven by contrary winds to a place in Egypt called 
the port of Menelaus, because that king of Sparta 
had been so long weather-bound there. The storm 
had been too much for the tough old frame of 
Agesilaus, who died there. His body was em- 
balmed in wax, and carried home to be buried at 
Sparta, whose greatest man he certainly was. 

The great Persian Empire was growing weak, 
and her subject cities were revolting from her. 
Caria, in Asia Minor, became free under its king, 
Mausolus, who reigned twenty-four years, but who 
is chiefly famous for the magnificent monument 
which his widow Artemisia raised to his memory, 
and which consisted of several stages of pillars, 
supported by tablets so exquisitely sculptured that 



262 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

the Mausoleum, as it was called, was taken into the 
number of the seven wonders of the world. After 
all, its splendor did not comfort the heart of Arte- 
misia, and she had the ashes of her husband taken 
from his urn and carried them about her in a casket, 
until finally she put them in water and drank them, 
so as to be for ever one with them. She was her- 
self buried in the Mausoleum, the remains of which 
have lately been discovered, and are now placed in 
the British' Museum. 

One more great man had grown up in Athens — 
namely, Demosthenes. He was the son of an 
Athenian sword merchant, who died when he was 
but seven years old. His guardians neglected his 
property, and he was a sickly boy, with some 
defect in his speech, so that his mother kept him at 
home as much as she could, and he was never 
trained in mind or body like the other Athenian 
youth ; but, as he grew older, he seems to have 
learned much from the philosopher Plato, and he 
set himself to lead the Athenians as a public 
speaker. For this he prepared himself diligently, 
putting pebbles in his mouth to help himself to 
overcome his stammering, and going out to make 
speeches to the roaring waves of the sea, that he 
might learn not to be daunted by the shouts of the 



Philip of Macedon. 263 

raging people ; and thus he taught himself to be 
the most famous orator in the world, just as 
Phidias was the greatest sculptor and iEschylus 
the chief tragedian. 

His most eloquent discourses are called Philip- 
pics, because they were against Philip, king of 
Macedon, a power that was growing very dangerous 
to the rest of Greece. It lay to the northward of 
the other states, and had never quite been reckoned 
as part of Greece, for a rough dialect that was 
spoken there, and the king had been forced to join 
the Persian army when Xerxes crossed his country ; 
but he had loved the Greek cause, and had warned 
Aristides at the battle of Platsea. The royal family 
counted Hercules as their forefather, and were 
always longing to be accepted as thorough Greeks. 
One of the young princes, named Philip, was taken 
to Thebes by Pelopidas, to secure him from his 
enemies at home. He was lodged in the house of 
Epaminondas' father, and was much struck with 
the grand example he there beheld, though he 
cared more for the lessons of good policy he then 
learned than for those of virtue. 

Two years after the battle of Man tinea, Philip 
heard that his elder brother, the king, was dead, 
leaving only a young infant upon the throne., 



264 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

He went home at once and took the guardianship 
of the kingdom, gained some great victories over 
the wild neighbors of Macedon, to the north, and 
then made himself king, but without hurting his 
nephew, who grew up quietly at his court, and by- 
and-by married one of his daughters. He had 
begun to train his troops to excellent discipline^ 
perfecting what was called the Macedonian pha- 
lanx, a manner of arraying his forces which he had 
learned in part from Epaminondas. The phalanx 
was a body of heavily-armed foot soldiers, each 
carrying a shield, and a spear twenty-four feet long. 
When they advanced, they were taught to lock 
their shields together, so as to form a wall, and 
they stood in ranks, one behind the other, so that 
the front row had four spear points projecting 
before them. 

He also made the Macedonian nobles send their 
sons to be trained to arms at his court, so as to 
form a guard of honor, who were comrades, friends, 
and officers to the king. In the meantime, wars 
were going on — one called the Social War and 
one the Sacred War — which wasted the strength 
of the Thebans, Spartans, and Athenians all alike, 
until Philip began to come forward, intending to 
have power over them all. At first, he marched 



Philip of Macedon. 265 

into Thrace, the wild country to the north, and 
laid siege to Methone. In this city there was an 
archer, named Aster, who had once offered his 
service to the Macedonian army, when Philip, who 
cared the most for his phalanx, rejected him con- 
temptuously, saying, " I will take you into my pay 
when I make war on starlings/' This man shot an 
arrow, with the inscription on it, "To Philip's 
right eye;" and it actually hit the mark, and put 
out the eye. Philip caused it to be shot back 
again, with the inscription, "If Philip takes the 
city, he will hang Aster." And so he did. Indeed 
he took the loss of his eye so much to heart, that 
he was angry if anyone mentioned a Cyclops in his 
presence. 

After taking Methone, lie was going to pass into 
Thessaly, but the Athenians held Thermopylae, and 
lie waited till he could ally himself with the The- 
bans against the Phocians. He took Phocis, and 
thus gained the famous pass, being able to attack 
it on both sides. Next he listened to envoys from 
Messenia and Argos, who complained of the do- 
minion of the Spartans, and begged him to help 
them. The Athenians were on this urged by De- 
mosthenes, in one of his Philippics, to forget all 
their old hatred to Sparta, and join her in keeping 



266 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

back the enemy of both alike ; and their intention 
of joining Sparta made Philip wait, and begin by 
trying to take the great island of Euboea, which he 
called the " Shackles of Greece." To its aid was 
sent a body of Athenians, under the command of 
Phocion, a friend of Plato, and one of the sternest 
of Stoics, of whom it was said that no one had ever 
seen him laugh, weep, or go to the public baths. 
He went about barefoot, and never wrapped him- 
self up if he could help it, so that it was a saying, 
u Phocion has got his cloak on ; it is a hard winter." 
He was a great soldier, and for the time, drove 
back the Macedonians from Euboea. But very few 
Athenians had the spirit of Phocion or Demosthe- 
nes. They had grown idle, and Philip was bribing 
all who would take his money among the other 
Greeks to let his power and influence spread, until 
at last he set forth to invade Greece. The Thebans 
and Athenians joined together to stop him, and 
met him at Chseronea, in Boeotia ; but neither city 
could produce a real general, and though at* first 
the Athenians gained some advantage, they did not 
make a proper use of it, so that Philip cried out, 
" The Athenians do not know how to conquer," 
and making another attack, routed them entirely. 
Poor Demosthenes, who had never been in a battle 




DEMOSTHENES AND THE CUP OF GOLD. 



Philip of Macedon. 2G9 

before, and could only fight with his tongue, fled 
in such a fright that when a bramble caught his 
tunic, he screamed out, " Oh, spare my life ! " The 
battle of Chaeronea was a most terrible overthrow, 
and neither Athens nor Thebes ever recovered it. 
Macedon entirely gained the chief power over 
Greece, and Philip was the chief man in it, though 
Demosthenes never ceased to try to stir up oppo- 
sition to him. Philip was a very able man, and 
had a good deal of nobleness in his nature. Once, 
after a feast, he had to hear a trial, and gave sen- 
tence in haste. " I appeal," said the woman who 
had lost. " Appeal ? and to whom ? " said the 
king. " I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip 
sober." He was greatly struck, heard the case over 
the next day, and found that he had been wrong 
and the woman right. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE YOUTH OF ALEXANDER 
B.C. 356—334. 

PHILIP of Macedon married Olympias, the 
daughter of the king of Epirus, who traced 
his descent up to Achilles. She was beautiful, but 
fierce and high-spirited ; and the first time Philip 
saw her she was keeping the feast of Bacchus, and 
was dancing fearlessly among great serpents, which 
twisted about among the maidens' vine-wreathed 
staves, their baskets of figs, and even the ivy 
crowns on their heads. Her wild beauty charmed 
him, and he asked her in marriage as soon as he 
had gained the throne. The son of this marriage, 
Alexander, was born at Pella in 356. On the 
same day a great battle w r as won by Parmenio, 
Philip's chief general, and the king's horses won 

the prize at the Olympic games. Philip was so 

270 



The Youth of Alexander. 



271 



prosperous that he declared he must sacrifice to the 
gods, or they would be jealous, and cast him down 
in the midst of his happiness. 

That same night the wonder of the world, the 
temple of Diana at Ephesus, was burnt down by a 
madman named Erostratus, who thought the deed 
would make him for ever famous. It was built up 
1 again more splendidly than 
ever, and the image was 
saved. 

The chief physician at 
Philip's court was Aristotle, 
a Macedonian of Stagyra, 
who had studied under 
Plato, and was one of the 
greatest and best of philos- 
ophers ; and Philip wrote to 
him at once that he rejoiced 
not only in having a son, 
but in his having been born 




DIANA OF EPHESUS. 



when he could have Aristotle for a tutor. For 
seven years, however, the boy was under the care 
of a noble lady named Lanika, whom he loved all 
his life, and then was placed with a master, who 
taught him to repeat the Iliad and Odyssey from 
end to end. He delighted in them so much that 



272 Young Folks 1 History of Greece. 

he always carried a copy about with him, and con- 
stantly dreamt of equalling his forefather Achilles. 
When he was about . thirteen, a magnificent black 
horse called Bucephalus, or Bull-head, because it 
had. a white mark like a bull's face on its forehead, 
was brought to Philip ; but it was so strong and 
restive that nobody could manage it, and Philip 
was sending it away, when Alexander begged leave* 
to try to tame it. First he turned his head to the 
sun, having perceived that its antics were caused 
by fear of its own shadow; then stroking and 
caressing it as he held the reins, he gently dropped 
his fluttering mantle and leaped on its back, sitting 
firm through all its leaps and bounds, but using 
neither whip nor spur nor angry voice, till at last 
the creature was brought to perfect obedience. 
This gentle courage and firmness so delighted 
Philip that he embraced the boy with tears of joy, 
and gave him the horse, which, as long as it lived, 
loved and served him like no one else. Philip also 
said that such a boy might be treated as a man, 
and therefore put him under Aristotle three years 
earlier than it was usual to begin philosophy ; and 
again he was an apt and loving scholar, learning 
great wisdom in dealing with men and things, and, 



The Youth of Alexander. 273 

in truth learning everything but how to control his 
temper. 

At the battle of Chseronea, Alexander was old 
enough to command the division which fought 
aganist the Thebans, and entirely overthrew them ; 
so that when peace was made, Sparta was the only 
city that refused to own the superior might of 
Macedon, and the Council of the States chose 
Philip as commander of the Greeks in the grand 
expedition he was going to undertake against 
Persia. 

But Philip had eastern vices. He was tired of 
Olympias' pride and wilfulness, and took another 
wife, whom he raised to the position of queen ; 
and at the banquet a half-tipsy kinsman of this 
woman insulted Alexander, who threw a cup at 
the man. Philip started up to chastise his son, but 
between rage and wine, fell down, while Alexander 
said, " See, a man preparing to cross from Europe 
to Asia cannot step safely from one couch to an- 
other ! " 

Then he took his mother to her native home, and 

stayed away till his father sent for him, but kept 

him in a kind of disgrace, until at the wedding 

feast of Alexander's sister Cleopatra with the king 

of Epirus, just as Philip came forward in a white 

18 



274 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

garment, a man darted forward and thrust a sword 
through his body, then fled so fast that be would 
have escaped if his foot had not caught in some 
vine stocks, so that the guards cut him to pieces. 

Alexander was proclaimed king, at only twenty 
years old ; and Demosthenes was so delighted at 
the death of the enemy of Athens, that he wreathed 
his head with a garland in token of joy, little guessing 
that Philip's murder had only placed a far greater 
man on the throne. The first thing Alexander did 
was to go to Corinth, and get himself chosen in his 
father's stead captain-general of the Greeks. Only 
the Spartans refused, saying it was their custom to 
lead, and not to follow ; while the Athenians pre- 
tended to submit, meaning to take the first oppor- 
tunity of breaking off the yoke. Before Alexander 
could march, however, to Persia, he had to leave 
all safe behind him ; so he turned northwards to 
subdue the wild tribes in Thrace. He was gone 
four months, and the Greeks heard nothing of him, 
so that the Thebans thought he must be lost, and 
proclaimed that they were free from the power of 
Macedon. 

Their punishment was terrible. Alexander came 
back in haste, fought them in their own town, 
hunted them from street to street, killed or made 



The Youth of Alexander. 275 

slaves of all who had not been friends of his father, 
pulled down all the houses, and divided the lands 
between the other Boeotian cities. This was for 
the sake of making an example of terror ; but he 
afterwards regretted this act, and, as Bacchus was 
the special god of Thebes, he thought himself pun- 
ished by the fits of rage that seized him after any 
excess in wine. The other Greeks, all but the 
Spartans, again sent envoys to meet Alexander at 
Corinth, and granted him all the men, stores, and 
money he asked for. The only person who did not 
bow down to him was Diogenes, a philosopher who 
so exaggerated Stoicism that he was called the 
" Mad Socrates." His sect was called Cynics, from 
Cyon, a dog, because they lived like dogs, seldom 
washing, and sleeping in any hole. Diogenes' lair 
was a huge earthenware tub, that belonged to the 
temple of the mother of the gods, Cybele ; and 
here Alexander went to see him, and found him 
basking in the sun before it, but not choosing to 
take any notice of the princely youth who addressed 
him — "I am Alexander the King." 

" And I am Diogenes the Cynic," was the an- 
swer, in a tone as if he thought himself quite as 
good as the king. Alexander, however, talked 



276 Young Folks' History of Greece. 



much with him, and ended by asking if he could do 
anything for him. 

" Only stand out of my sunshine, " was the an- 
swer ; and as the young king went away he said, 

" If I were not Alex- 
ander, I would be Di- 
ogenes ;" meaning, per- 
haps, that if he were 
not to master all earth- 
ly things, he would 
rather despise them. 
Twelve years later, 
Diogenes, then past 
ninety, was found dead 
in his tub, haying 
supped the night be- 
fore upon the raw leg 
of an ox ; and, strange- 
ly enough, it was the 
very night that Alex- 
ander died. 

Alexander was going 
on with his prepara- 
alexander. tions for conquering 

the East. He had 12,000 foot soldiers from Mace- 




The Youth of Alexander. 277 

don, trained to fight in the terrible phalanx, and 
5000 horsemen ; also his own body-guard of young 
nobles, bred up with him at Pella ; 7000 men from 
the Greek states, and 5000 who had been used, 
like the 10,000 of Xenophon, to hire themselves 
out to the Persians, and thus knew the languages, 
manners, roads, and way of fighting in the East ; 
but altogether he had only 34,500 men with which 
to attack the empire which stretched from the 
jEgean to Scythia, from the Euxine to the African 
deserts. Such was his liberality in gifts before he 
went away, that when he was asked what he had 
left for himself, he answered, " My hopes ; " and 
his hope was not merely to conquer that great 
world, but to tame it, bring it into order, and teach 
the men there the wisdom and free spirit of the 
Greek world ; for he had learnt from Aristotle that 
to make men true, brave, virtuous and free was the 
way to be godlike. It was in his favor that the 
direct line of Persian kings had failed, and that 
there had been wars and factions all through the 
last reign. The present king was Codomanus, a 
grand-nephew of that Artaxerxes against whom 
Cyrus had led the ten thousand. He had come to 
the throne in 336, the same year as Alexander, and 



278 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

was known as Darius, the royal name lie had taken. 
Alexander made his father's councillor, Antipater, 
governor of Macedon in his absence, and took 
leave of his mother and his home in the spring of 
334. 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE EXPEDITION TO PEKSIA. 
B.C. 334. 

ALEXANDER passed the Hellespont in the 
April of 334, steering his own vessel, and 
was the first to leap on shore. The first thing he 
did was to go over the plain of Troy and all the 
scenes described in the Iliad, and then to offer 
sacrifices at the mound said to be the tomb of 
Achilles, while his chief friend Hephsestion paid 
the same honors to Patroclus. 

The best general in the Persian army was a 
Rhodian named Memnon, who wanted to starve 
out Alexander by burning and destroying all before 
him ; but the satrap Arsaces would not consent to 
this, and chose to collect his forces, and give battle 
to the Greeks on the banks of the river Granicus, 

a stream rising in Mount Ida and falling into the 

279 



280 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



Euxine. Alexander led the right wing, with, a 
white plume in his helmet, so that all might know 
him ; Parmenio led the left ; and it was a grand 
victory, though not without much hard fighting, 




ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



hand to hand. Alexander was once in great 
danger, but was saved by Clitus, the son of his 
nurse Lauika. The Persians broke and dispersed 
so entirely that no army was left in Asia Minor, 
and the satrap Arsaces killed himself in despair. 



The Expedition to Persia. 281 

Alexander forbade his troops to plunder the 
country, telling them that it was his own, and that 
the people were as much his subjects as they were ; 
and all the difference he made was changing 
the Persian governors for Greek ones. Sardis and 
Ephesus fell into his hands without a blow ; and to 
assist in rebuilding the great temple of Diana, he 
granted all the tribute hitherto paid to the Great 
King. When he came to Caria, Ada, who was 
reigning there as queen, adopted him as her son, 
and wanted him to take all her best cooks with him 
to provide his meals for the future. He thanked 
her, but said his tutor had given him some far 
better relishers — namely, a march before daybreak 
as sauce for his dinner, and a light dinner as sauce 
for his supper. 

When he came to Gordium, in Phrygia, where 
one version of the story of Midas had placed that 
king, he was shown a wagon to which the yoke was 
fastened by a knotted with of cornel bough, and 
told that in this wagon Midas had come to Gordium, 
and that whoever could undo it should be the lord 
of Asia. Alexander dexterously drew out the pin, 
and unwound the knot, to the delight of his fol- 
lowers. 

In the spring he dashed down through the 



282 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Taurus mountains, to take possession of the city of 
Tarsus, in Cilicia, before Memnon could collect the 
scattered Persian forces to enter it and cut him off 
from Syria. He rode in heated and wearied, and 
at once threw himself from his horse to bathe in the 
waters of the river Cydnus ; but they came from the 
melting snows on the mountains, and were so 
exceedingly cold that the shock of the chill brought 
on a most dangerous fever. One physician, named 
Philip, offered to give him a draught that might 
relieve him, but at the same time a warning was 
sent from Parmenio that the man had been bribed 
to poison him. Alexander took the cup, and, 
while he drank it off, he held out the letter to 
Philip with the other hand ; but happily there was 
no treason, and he slowly recovered, while Par- 
menio was sent on to secure the mountain passes. 
Darius, however, was advancing with a huge 
army, in which was a band of Spartans, who hated 
the Persians less than they did the Macedonians. 
The Persian march was a splendid sight. There 
was a crystal disk to represent the sun' over the 
king's tent, and the army never moved till sunrise, 
when first were carried silver altars bearing the 
sacred fire, and followed by a band of youths, one 
for each day in the year, in front of the chariot of 



The Expedition to Persia 283 

the sun, drawn by white horses ; after which came 
a horse consecrated to the sun, and led by white- 
robed attendants. The king himself sat in a high, 
richly-adorned chariot, wearing a purple mantle, 
encrusted with precious stones, and encompassed 
with his Immortal band, in robes adorned with 
gold, and carrying silver-handled lances. In cov- 
ered chariots were his mother Sisygambis, his chief 
wife and her children, and 360 inferior wives, their 
baggage occupying 600 mules and 300 camels, all 
protected by so enormous an army that every one 
thought the Macedonians must be crushed. 

With some skill Darius' army passed from the 
East into Cilicia, and thus got behind Alexander, 
who had gone two days' march into Syria ; but on 
the tidings he turned back at once, and found that 
they had not guarded the passes between him and 
them. So he attacked them close to Issus, and 
there again gained a great victory. When Darius 
saw his Immortals giving way, he was seized with 
terror, sprang out of his royal chariot, mounted on 
horseback, and never rested till he was on the other 
side of the Euphrates. 

Still there was a sharp fight, and Alexander was 
slightly wounded in the thigh; but when all the 
battle was over he came to the tents of Darius, and 



284 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

said he would try a Persian bath. He was amused 
to find it a spacious curtained hall, full of vessels of 
gold and silver, perfumes and ointments, of which 
the simpler Greeks did not even know the use, and 
with a profusion of slaves to administer them. A 
Persian feast was ready also ; but just as he Avas 
going to sit down to it he heard the voice of 
weeping and wailing in the next tent, and learned 
that it came from Darius' family. He rose at once 
to go and comfort the old mother, Sisygambis, and 
went into her tent with Hephaestion. Both were 
plainly dressed, and Hephaestion was the taller, so 
that the old queen took him for the king, and threw 
herself at his feet. When she saw^ her mistake she 
was alarmed, but Alexander consoled her gentlY by 
saying, " Be not dismayed, mother ; this is Alex- 
ander's other self." And he continued to treat her 
with more kindness and respect than she had ever 
met with before, even from her own kindred ; nor 
did he ever grieve her but once, when he showed her 
a robe, spun, woven, and worked by his mother 
and sisters for him, and offered to have her grand-' 
children taught to make the like. Persian prin- 
cesses thought it was dignified to have nothing to do, 
and Sisygambus fancied he meant to make slaves 
of them ; so that he had to reassure her, and tell 



The Expedition to Persia. 



287 



her that the distaff, loom, and needle were held to 
give honor to Greek ladies. Darius had fled 
beyond the rivers, and Alexander waited to follow 
till he should have reduced the western part of the 




empire. He turned into Syria and Phoenicia, and 
laid siege to Tyre, which was built on an island a 
little way from the sea-shore. He had no ships, 
but he began building a causeway across the water. 



288 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

However, the Tyrians sallied out and destroyed it; 
and he had to go to Sidon, which he took much 
more easily, and thence obtained ships, with which 
he beat the Tyrian fleet, and, after great toil and 
danger, at last entered Tyre, after a siege of five 
months. 

Then he marched along the shore to the Philis- 
tine city of Gaza, which was likewise most bravely 
defended by a black slave named Boetis. Alex- 
ander was much hurt by a stone launched from the 
walls, which struck him between the breast and 
shoulder, and when at the end of four months' siege 
the city was stormed, the attack was led by one 
of his cousins. A cruel slaughter was made of the 
citizens ; and then Alexander marched up the steep 
road to Jerusalem, expecting another tedious siege. 
Instead of this, he beheld a long procession in white 
bordered with blue, coming out at the gates to meet 
him. All the Priests and Levites, in their robes, 
came forth, headed by Jadclua, the High Priest, in 
his beautiful raiment, and the golden mitre on his 
head inscribed with the words, " Holiness unto the 
Lord." So he had been commanded by God in a 
vision ; and when Alexander beheld the sight, he 
threw himself from his horse, and adored the Name 
on the mitre. He told his officers that before he 



The Expedition to Persia. 



291 



set out from home, when he was considering of 
his journey, just such a form as he now beheld had 
come and bidden him fear not, for he should be led 
into the East, and all Persia should be delivered to 
him. Then the High Priest took him to the outer 
court of the temple, and showed him the very 
prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah where his own 
conquests were foretold. 




CHAPTER XXIX. 

Alexander's eastern conquests 

B.C. 331—328. 

ALEXANDER'S next step was into Egypt, 
where the people had long desired to drive 
out the Persians, and welcomed him gladly. He 
wished to make a Greek settlement in Egypt, and 
bring Greek and Egyptian learning together ; so at 
the delta of the Nile he built the great city of 
Alexandria, which still remains as important as 
ever. 

So powerful did he feel himself, that a fancy 
crossed his mind that, after all, he was no mere 
man, but the son of Jupiter, and a demi-god, like 
Bacchus, or Hercules of old. There was a temple 
to the Egyptian god Amnion, on an oasis, a fertile 
spot round a spring in the middle of the desert, 
with an oracle that Alexander resolved to consult, 

292 



Alexander's Eastern Conquests. 



293 



and he made his way thither with a small chosen 
band. The oasis was green with laurels and palms ; 
and the emblem of the god, a gold disk, adorned 
with precious stones, and placed in a huge golden 
ship, was carried to meet him by eighty priests, 
with maidens dancing round them. He was taken 
alone to the innermost shrine. What he heard 




TEMPLE OF AMMON. 



there he never told ; but after this he wore rams' 
horns on his helmet, because a ram's head was one 
sign of the god, whom the Greeks made out to be 
the same as Jupiter ; and from this time forward 
he became much more proud and puffed up, so that 
it is likely that he had been told by this oracle just 
what pleased him. 



294 Young Folks 1 History of G-reece. 

He then went back to Tyre, and thence set out 
for the East. A bridge was thrown across the 
Euphrates, but the Tigris was forded by the foot 
soldiers, holding their shields above their heads out 
of the water. On the other side Darius was Avait- 
ing with all the men of the East to fight for their 
homes, not for distant possessions, as had been the 
lands of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. The 
Greeks had four days' march along the banks of 
the Tigris before coming in sight of the Persian 
host at Arbela. It was so late that the two armies 
slept in sight of one another. Parmenio advised 
the king to make a night attack, but all the answer 
he got was, " It would be base to steal a victory ; " 
and when he came in the morning to say that all 
was ready, he found his master fast asleep, and 
asked him how he could rest so calmly with one 
of the greatest battles in the world before him. 
" How could we not be calm," replied Alexander, 
" since the enemy is coming to deliver himself into 
our hands ? " v 

He would not wear such a corslet as had been 
crushed into his shoulder at Gaza, but put on a 
breast-plate of thick quilted linen, girt with a broad 
belt, guarded with a crust of finely-worked metal, 
and holding a light, sharp sword. He had a pol- 



Alexander's Eastern Conquests. 297 

ished steel helmet, a long spear in his right hand, 
and a shield on his left arm ; and thns he went 
forth to meet Darius, who came in the midst of 200 
chariots, armed with scythes, and fifteen trained 
elephants. He had so many troops that he intended 
to close the wings of his army in upon the Greeks, 
fold them up, and cut them off ; but Alexander, 
foreseeing this, had warned his men to be ready to 
face about on any side, and then drew them up in 
the shape of a wedge, and thus broke into the very 
heart of the Immortal band, and was on the point 
of taking Darius prisoner, when he was called off 
to help Parmenio, whose division had been broken, 
so that the camp was threatened. Alexander's 
presence soon set all right again, and made the vic- 
tory complete ; but Darius had had time to get 
away, and was galloping on a swift horse to the 
Armenian mountains. There was nobody left to 
defend Assyria, and Alexander marched in through 
the brazen gates of Babylon, when the streets were 
strewn with flowers, and presents of lions and 
leopards borne forth to greet the conqueror. 

The great temple of Bel had been partly ruined 
by the fire-worshiping Persians, and Alexander 
greatly pleased the Babylonians by decreeing that 
they might restore it with his aid ; but the Jews at 



298 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



Babylon would not work at an idol temple, which 
they believed to be also the tower of Babel, and 
on their entreaty Alexander permitted them to have 
nothing to do with it. 

After staying thirty days at Babylon, he went 




PRINCES OF PERSIA. 



on to Susa, where he found the brazen statues 
which Xerxes had carried away from the sack of 
Athens. He sent them home again, to show the 
Greeks he had avenged their cause. "When he 
came to Fars — or, as the Greeks call it, Persepolis 



Alexander s Eastern Conquests. 299 

— a wretched band of captives came out to meet 
him, with their eyes put out, or their noses, ears, 
hands, or feet cut off. The Greeks never tortured : 
it was a dreadful sight to them, and the king burst 
into tears, and promised to send all safe home, but 
they begged him instead, to help them to live 
where they were, since they were ashamed to show 
themselves to their kindred. Their misery made 
Alexander decide on giving the city up to plunder , 
the men were killed, the women and children made 
slaves. He meant to revenge on the Persian capi- 
tal all that the Great Kings had inflicted on the 
Greek cities, and one Corinthian actually shed 
tears of joy at seeing him on the throne, exclaim- 
ing, "What joy have those Greeks missed who 
have not seen Alexander on the throne of Darius ! " 
Poor Darius had pushed on into the mountains 
beyond Media, and thither Alexander pursued him ; 
but his own subjects had risen against him, and 
placed him in a chariot bound with golden chains. 
Alexander dashed on in pursuit with his fleetest 
horsemen, riding all night, and only resting in the 
noonday heat, for the last twenty-five miles over a 
desert without water. At daybreak he saw the 
Persian host moving along like a confused crowd. 
He charged them, and there was a general flight, 



300 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

and presently a cry that Darius was taken. Alex- 
ander galloped up and found the unhappy king on 
the ground, speechless and dying, pierced with 
javelins by his own subjects, who would not let him 
fall alive into the enemy's hands, and supported 
by a Macedonian soldier, who had given him drink, 
and heard his words of gratitude to Alexander for 
his kindness to his family, and his hopes that the 
conqueror would avenge his death, and become 
sovereign of the world. Alexander threw his own 
mantle over the body, and caused it to be em- 
balmed, and buried in the sepulchres of the Persian 
kings. 

Now that the victory was gained, the Greeks 
wanted to go home, and keep all the empire subject 
to them ; but this was not Alexander's plan. He 
meant to spread Greek wisdom and training over 
all the world, and to rule Persians as well as Greeks 
for their own good. So, though he let the Greek 
allies go home with pay, rewards and honors, he 
kept his Macedonians, and called himself by the 
Persian title, Shah in Shah, King of Kings, 
crowned himself with the Persian crown, and wore 
royal robes on state occasions. The Macedonians 
could not bear the sight, especially the nobles, who 
had lived on almost equal terms with him. There 



Alexander s Eastern Conquests. 303 

were murmurs, and Parmenio was accused of being 
engaged in a plot, and put to death. It was the 
first sad stain, on Alexander's life, and he fell into a 
fierce and angry mood, being fretted, as it seems, 
by the murmurs of the Macedonians, and harassed 
by the difficulties of the wild mountainous country 
on the borders of Persia, wdiere he had to hunt 
down the last Persians who held out against him. 
At a town called Cyropolis, a stone thrown from 
the walls struck him on the back of the neck, and 
for some days after he could not see clearly, so that 
some harm had probably been done to his brain. 
A few days later he was foolish enough to indulge 
in a wine-drinking banquet, at which some flatter- 
ers began to praise him in such an absurd manner 
that Clitus, the son of his good foster-mother 
Lanika, broke out in anger at his sitting still to 
listen to them. "Listen to truth," he said, " or else 
ask no freemen to join you, but surround yourself 
with slaves." 

Alexander, beside himself with rage, leaped up, 
feeling for his dagger to kill Clitus, but it was not 
in his belt, and they were both dragged backwards 
and held by their friends, until Alexander broke 
loose, snatched a pike from a soldier, and laid Cli- 
tus dead at his feet ; but the moment he saw what 



304 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

he had done, he was hardly withheld from turning 
the point against himself, and then he shut himself 
up in his chamber and wept bitterly, without com- 
ing out or tasting food for three days. He caused 
Clitus to be buried with all honors, and offered 
great sacrifices to Bacchus, thinking that it was 
the god's hatred that made him thus pass into 
frenzy when he had been drinking wine. 

He spent three years in securing his conquest 
over the Persian empire, where he won the love of 
the natives by his justice and kindness, and founded 
many cities, where he planted Greeks, and tried to 
make schools and patterns for the country round. 
They were almost all named Alexandria, and still 
bear the name, altered in some shape or other; 
but though some of his nearer friends loved him as 
heartily as ever, and many were proud of him, or 
followed him for what they could get, a great many 
Macedonians hated him for requiring them to set 
the example of respect, and laughed at the Eastern 
forms of state with which he was waited on, while 
they were still more angry that he made the Per- 
sians their equals, and not their slaves. So that he 
had more troubles with the Macedonians than with 
the strangers. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE END OF ALEXANDER. 
B.C. 328. 

T3EF0RE establishing his empire, Alexander 

-■— ' longed to survey the unknown lands further 

eastwards, and he led his army down the long, 

terrible Khybar pass to the banks of the Indus, 

where he fought a great battle with an Indian king 

called Porus, the bravest enemy he had yet met. 

At last Porus was defeated and made prisoner. 

He came to Alexander as if he were visiting him, 

and Alexander received him with like courtesy, and 

asked if he had any request to make. "None, save 

to be treated as a king," said Porus. " That I shall 

do, for my own sake," said Alexander, and the two 

became friends. In this country of the Indus, 

Alexander received the submission of thirty-five 

cities, and founded two more, one of which he 
305 20 



306 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

named Bucephala, in honor of his good horse 
Bucephalus, which died in the middle of a battle 
without a wound. 

Alexander longed to press on and see all the 
wonders of India, and the great river Ganges, but 
his Macedonians were weary of the march, and 
absolutely refused to go any further, so that he 
was obliged to turn back, in hopes of collecting 
another army, and going to the very shores of the 
Eastern Ocean. 

He would not, however, return by. the way he 
had gone, through the mountains, but he built 
ships on the river Jhelum, a tributary of the Indus, 
with which to coast along the shores to the mouth 
of the Euphrates. There were forests of fir and 
pine to supply the wood, but their inhabitants, the 
apes and monkeys, collected in such force on the 
top of a hill near at hand, that the Greeks thought 
they were human enemies, and were about to attack 
them, till a native explained the mistake. 

They met more dangerous enemies when they 
came to Mooltan, the city of a tribe called the 
Malli. This was a fort shut in by a strong outer 
wall, within which trees were growing. Alexander 
planted a ladder against the wall, and mounted it 
first, but while his men were climbing up after him, 



The End of Alexander. 307 

it broke, and he stood alone on the wall, a mark for 
all the darts of the enemy. His guards stretched 
up their arms, begging him to leap back to them, 
but he scorned to do this, and jumped down within, 
among the enemy. They gave back for a moment, 
but, on finding that he was quite alone, closed in 
upon him. Pie set his back against the Avail, under 
a fig-tree, and slew with his sword all who 
approached. Then they formed into a half-circle, 
and shot at him with barbed arrows, six feet long. 
By this time a few of his guards had climbed up 
the Avail, and Avere coming doAvn to his help, at the 
moment Avhen an arroAV pierced his breast, and he 
sank doAvn in a kneeling posture, Avith his broAV on 
the rim of his shield, Avhile his men held their 
shields over him till the rest could come to their aid, 
and he Avas taken up as one dead, and carried out 
on his shield, Avhile all Avithin the fort Avere 
slaughtered in the rage of the Macedonians. When 
the king had been carried to his tent, the point of 
the arroAV Avas found to be firmly fixed in his 
breast-bone, and he bade Perdiccas, his friend, cut 
a gash Avicle enough to alloAV the barbs to pass 
before draAving it out. He refused to be held 
Avhile this was done, but kept himself perfectly 
still, until he fainted, and lay for many hours 



308 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

between life and death ; nor was it for a week that 
he could even bear to be placed on board a galley, 
and lie on the deck under an awning as it went 
down the river, whilst his men were in raptures to 
see him restored to them. 

He had to halt for some weeks, and then proceed 
along the Indus, until he reached the Indian Ocean, 
where the Greeks were delighted to see their old 
friend the sea, though they w^ere amazed at the 
tides, having never seen any in their own Mediter- 
ranean. Alexander now sent an old commander, 
Nearchus, to take charge of the ships along the 
coast, while he himself marched along inland, to 
collect provisions and dig wells for their supply ; 
but the dreadful, bare, waterless country, covered 
with rocks, is so unfit for men that his troops 
suffered exceedingly, and hardly anyone has been 
there since his time. He shared all the distresses 
of his soldiers, and once, when a little water, found 
with great difficulty, was brought him as he plod- 
ded along in the scorching heat of a noonday sun, 
he gave heartfelt thanks, but in the sight of all 
poured out the water, not choosing to take to him- 
self what all could not share. In the midst the 
guides lost their way, and Alexander had to steer 
their course for a week by his own instinct, and the 



The End of Alexander. 309 

sun and stars, until after sixty days he reached a 
place which seems to be Bunpore, part of the Per- 
sian empire, where his difficulties were over, and 
Nearchus by-ancl-by joined him, after a wonderful 
voyage, of which he wrote an account, which has 
not come down to our times, so that we only know 
that no Greek believed in it. Alexander meant to 
try if he could sail through this strange sea, and 
return to Greece by the Pillars of Hercules, as we 
now know would have been quite possible. 

He found, when he came back to Persia, that the 
governors he had left in the cities had thought that 
he was sure to perish in India, and had plundered 
shamefully, so that he had to punish severely both 
Greeks and Persians ; but then, to make the two 
nations friends, he held an immense wedding feast 
at Susa, when eighty Greek bridegrooms married 
eighty Persian brides. Alexander himself and his 
friend Hephsestion had the two daughters of Darius, 
and the other ladies were daughters of satraps. 
The wedding was thus conducted : in one great 
hall eighty double seats were placed, and here the 
bridegrooms sat down to feast, till the brides en- 
tered, in jewelled turbans, wide linen drawers, 
silken tunics, and broad belts. Alexander rose, 
took his princess by the hand, and led her to his 



810 Young Folks* History of Greece. 

seat, and then all the rest followed his example — 
each led his lady to his seat, kissed her, and placed 
her beside him, then cut a loaf of bread in two, 
poured out wine, and ate and drank with her. 

Hephsestion died soon after, at Ecbatana, of a 
fever he had not taken care of in time. Alexander 
caused his corpse to be brought to Babylon, and 
burnt on a funeral pile ; while he himself was in 
an agony of grief, and sent to ask the oracle of 
Ammon whether his friend might not be worshiped 
as a hero-god. He himself had already demanded 
divine honors from the Greeks. The Athenians 
obeyed, but secretly mocked ; and the Spartans 
grimly answered, " If Alexander will be a god, let 
him." 

Alexander was at Babylon, newly fortifying it, 
and preparing it to be the capital of his mighty 
empire. He held his court seated on the golden 
throne of the Persian Shahs, with a golden pine 
over it, the leaves of emeralds and the fruit of car- 
buncles ; and here he received embassies from 
every known people in Europe and Asia, and stood 
at the highest point of glory that man has ever 
reached, not knowing how near the end was. 

Ever since Cyrus had taken Babylon by turning 
the Euphrates out of its course, the ground had 



The End of Alexander. 311 

been ill drained, swampy and unhealthy ; and be- 
fore setting out on further conquests, Alexander 
wished to put all this in order again, and went 
about in a boat on the canals to give directions. 
His broad-brimmed hat was blown off, and lodged 
among the weeping willows round some old Assyr- 
ian's tomb ; and though it was brought back at 
once, the Greeks thought it having been on a tomb 
an evil omen, but the real harm was in the heat of 
the sun on his bare head, which he had shorn in 
mourning for Hephsestion. 

He meant to go on an expedition to Arabia, and 
offered a great sacrifice, but at night fever came 
on. The Greeks at home, who hated him, said it 
was from drinking a huge cup of wine at one 
draught ; but this is almost certain not to be true, 
since his doctors have left a daily journal of his 
illness, and make no mention of any such excess. 
He daily grew worse, worn out by his toils and his 
wounds, and soon he sank into a lethargy, in which 
he hardly spoke. Once he said something about 
his empire passing to the strongest, and of great 
strife at his funeral games, and at last, when his 
breath was almost gone, he held out his signet ring 
to Perdiccas, the only one of his old friends who 
was near him. He was only thirty-three years old, 



312 



Young Folks 9 History of Greece. 



and had made his mighty conquests in twelve years, 
when he thus died in 323. The poor old Persian 
queen, Sisygambis, so grieved for him that she re- 
fused all food, sat weeping in a corner, and died a 
few days after him. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE LAST STRUGGLES OF ATHENS. 
B.C. 334 — 311. 

'HT^HE generals of Alexander met in dismay and 
-*- grief the morning after his death at Babylon, 
and Perdiccas sadly laid the ring on the empty 
throne. There was no one to go on with what he 
had begun, for though he had a brother named Ar- 
ridseus, the poor youth was weak in mind ; and Alex- 
ander's own son was a little, helpless infant. These 
two were joined together as Kings of Maeedon and 
Shahs of Persia, and four guardians were appointed 
for them, who really only used their names as a 
means of getting power for themselves. 

The Greek cities had always hated the yoke of 
Maeedon, and hoped that Alexander would be lost 
in the East. They had been restless all this time, 

and had only been kept down by the threats and 
313 



314 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

the bribes of Antipater, the governor of Maceclon. 
When the news of Alexander's death first came to 
Athens, the people were ready to make a great 
outbreak, but the more cautious would not believe 
it, and Phocion advised them to wait, "for," he 
said, " if he is dead to-day, he will still be dead to- 
morrow and the next day, so that we may take 
council at our leisure." 

Phocion was a good and honest man, but low- 
spirited, and he thought quiet the only hope for 
Athens. When he found that the citizens were 
making a great boasting, and were ready to rush 
into a war without counting the cost, he said he 
would advise one only " whenever he saw the 
young men ready to keep their ranks, the old men 
to pay the money, and the orators to abstain from 
taking it for themselves." However, the Athenians 
made a league with the Thessalians and other 
Greeks against Macedon, and put their army under 
the command of Leosthenes, a young man to whom 
Phocion said, "Your speeches are like cypress 
trees, stately and lofty, but bearing no fruit." 
Leosthenes defeated Antipater and the Macedonians 
at Lamia, and besieged them ; but still Phocion 
had no hope, and when asked whether he could wish 



The Last Struggles of Athens* 315 

for better success, lie said, " No, but better coun- 
sels. M 

Demostnenes had in me meantime been banished 
by the spite of some of his secret enemies. He was 
very angry and bitter, and as he lived in JEgina, 
whence he could still see the Acropolis and temple 
of Pallas Athene, he exclaimed, " Goddess, what 
favorites thou has chosen — the owl, the ass, and 
the Athenians ; " but in these days of joy a ship 
was sent by the State to bring him home, and fifty 
talents were granted to him. 

But Leosthenes was killed by a stone from the 
walls of Lamia, and some Macedonian troops came 
home from the East to the help of Antipater. 
They were defeated by land, but they beat the 
Athenians by sea ; and in a second battle such a 
defeat was given to the Greeks that their league 
against Macedon was broken up, and each city was 
obliged to make peace for itself separately. 

Antipater made it a condition of granting peace 
that all who had favored resistance to Macedon 
should be treated as rebels. Demosthenes and his 
friends fled from Athens, and took refuge at the 
temples of different gods ; but the cruel Macedon- 
ian was resolved that they should all be put to 
death, and took a set of ruffians into his pay, who 



816 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

were called the Exile-hunters, because they were 
to search out and kill all who had been sent away 
from their cities for urging them to free themselves. 
Demosthenes was in the temple of Neptune at 
Calaurea. When the exile-hunters came thither, 
he desired time to write a letter to his friends, 
spread a roll of parchment before him, and bit the 
top of the reed he was writing with ; after which he 
bowed his head, and covered it with his robe. 
There was poison hidden in the top of the reed, 
and presently he rose up and said, " Act the part 
of Creon, and throw my body to the dogs. I quit 
thy sanctuary, Neptune, still breathing, though 
Antipater and the Macedonians have not spared it 
from pollution." 

He tried to reacn the door, but as he passed the 
altar, he fell, and died with one groan. Poor 
Athens was quite struck down, and the affairs were 
chiefly managed by Phocion, who was a thoroughly 
honest, upright man, but submitted to let the Mac- 
edonians dictate to the city, because he did not 
think the Athenians could make head against them. 
Antipater could never persuade him to take any 
reward for himself, though others who were friends 
of Macedon could never be satisfied with bribes. 
Meantime, Perdiccas was coming home, bringing 



The Last Struggles of Athens. 317 

with him the two young kings, uncle and nephew, 
and meaning to put Antipater down ; but he turned 
aside on his way to attack Ptolemy, the ablest of 
all Alexander's generals, who was commanding in 
Egypt, and in trying to cross the Nile a great part 
of his army was cut off, and multitudes were eaten 
by the crocodiles. The few who were left rose 
against him and murdered him in his tent, then 
offered the command and guardianship of the kings 
to Ptolemy ; but he would not take it, and chose 
rather to stay and make himself king of Egypt, 
where his family reigned at Alexandria for three 
hundred years, all the kings being called Ptolemy. 
Antipater was by this time an old man, and he died 
a little after ; and his son Cassander expected to 
take the government of Macedon, but, to his 
surprise, found that his father had appointed the 
old general Polysperchon in his stead. This he 
would not endure, and a war arose between the 
two. One of Cassander's friends took possession of 
Piraeus, to hold it for him ; and Phocion was 
accused of haying advised it, and was obliged to 
flee with his friends into a village in Phocis, where 
they were made prisoners by Polysperchon, who 
thought to please the Athenians by sending them 
in wagons to Athens to be tried. A mob of the 



318 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

worst sort came together, and would not hear their 
defence, but sentenced them to die by taking 
hemlock. When Phocion was asked whether he 
had any message for his son, he said, " Only that 
he bear no grudge against the Athenians." There 
was not enough hemlock to poison all, -and more 
was sent for. The jailer desired to be paid, and 
Phocion said, "Give the man his money. One 
cannot even die for nothing in Athens." 

Phocion is sometimes called the last of the Athe- 
nians, but it w^as a sad kind of greatness, for he 
could not give them freedom, and only tried to 
keep them from the misery of war by submission to 
Macedon. The Spartans would give no help ; and 
though the little city of Megalopolis held bravely 
out against Cassander, it was taken and horribly 
punished ; and it was plain that the old spirit of the 
Greeks was gone, and that they could no longer 
band together to keep out the enemy ; so they all 
remained in subjection to Macedon, most of them 
with a garrison of Macedonian soldiers in their 
citadel. But Athens was as full of philosophers as 
ever, and became a sort of college, where people 
sent their sons to study learning, oratory, and 
poetry, and hear the disputes of the Stoic and 
Epicurean philosophers. 



The Last Struggles of Athens. 319 

In the meantine Alexander's embalmed body had 
been buried at Alexandria, and the two young 
kings, his son Alexander iEgos and his half-brother 
Arridseus, had been brought to Maeedon. His 
mother Olympias put poor Arridseus to death as 
soon as she could get him into her power. She 
had always hated Antipater, and now took part 
with Polysperchon against Cassander ; but this was 
the losing side. Polysperchon was beaten, and 
driven out of Maeedon ; and she, with her grand- 
son and his mother, the Persian princess Roxana, 
shut themselves up in Pyclna, where Cassander 
besieged them till he had starved them out, and 
Olympias surrendered on condition that her life was 
spared ; but Cassander did not keep his word, and 
sent soldiers to put her to death. The young king 
and his mother were kept at Amphipolis till the 
boy was sixteen years old; and then, growing 
afraid that he would try to win his father's throne, 
Cassander had them both slain. 

So the great empire of Alexander was broken up 
among four chief powers, Cassander in Maeedon, 
Lysimachus in Thrace, Seleucus in Syria, Ptolemy 
in Egypt. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE FOUB, NEW KINGDOMS. 
B.C. 311—287. 

INHERE was a mighty power coming up against 
-*■ Cassander. One of Alexander's old generals, 
named Antigonus, the " One-eyed," had received 
some Asiatic provinces for his share in the break- 
up of the empire, and when Perdiccas set out on his 
return was appointed commander in his stead in the 
East ; and again, when Antipater died, Potysper- 
chon renewed his appointment ; while Eumenes, an 
honest and good man, was the regent upheld by 
Cassander's party. In 316 a battle was fought at 
Gabiene, in which Eumenes was defeated. He was 
given up to Antigonus by his own troops, and as 
the victor could not bear to kill his old comrade, he 
left him in prison to be starved to death. 

Then Antigonus took possession of all the 

320 




TIMOLEON AND TIMOPHANES. 
21 



TJie Four Neio Kingdoms. 323 

treasures in Ecbatana and Babylon, and began to 
call Seleucus in Syria to account for his dealings 
with the revenues of the empire. Seleucus fled 
into Egypt ; and all the four chiefs, Ptolemy, 
Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander joined to- 
gether to put down Antigonus and his brave aifd 
able son, Demetrius. There was war everywhere, 
until in 311 peace was made, on condition that the 
Greek cities should be set free, and that Antigonus 
should have the whole government of Asia Minor, 
Seleucus of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Cassander of 
Macedon, and Lysimachus of Thrace, till the young 
Alexander was old enough to govern ; but, as we 
have seen, Cassander murdered him when he was 
only sixteen, and the old family of Macedon was at 
an end. Nor did Cassander give up the Greek 
cities ; so Demetrius was sent to force him to do so. 
There was little attempt to resist him ; and the 
Athenians were in such delight that they called 
him the Saviour, named a month after him, lodged 
him in the Parthenon itself, and caused his image 
to be carried in processions among those of the 
gods themselves. He took so many towns that his 
name in history is Poliorketes, or the City-taker, 
and then he was sent to gain the isle of Cyprus 
from Ptolemy. The fleet of Alexander was thought 



324 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

the best in the world, but Demetrius defeated it 
entirely in the year 306, and in their joy the 
soldiers called him and his father both kings, and 
they put on the diadem of the Shahs of Persia, 
making their capital the city they had founded on 
the Orontes, and calling it Antigoneia. 

Cassander, Ptolemj^ Lysimachus, and Seleucus 
all likewise called themselves kings. And still the 
war went on. Demetrius was sent against the 
island of Rhodes, which belonged to Ptolemy, and 
besieged the city a whole year, but could not take 
it, and was obliged to make peace with the island- 
ers at last, and to give them all the machines he 
had used in the siege. These they sold for 300 
talents, and used the money to make an enormous 
brazen statue of Apollo, to stand with one foot on 
each side of the entrance of the harbor. Ships in 
full sail could pass under it, and few men could 
grasp its thumb with their arms. It was called the 
Colossus of Rhodes, and was counted as the seventh 
wonder of the world, the others being the temple 
of Diana at Ephesus, the Tomb of Mausolus, the 
Lighthouse of Messina, the Walls of Babylon, the 
Labyrinth of Crete, and the Pyramids of Egypt. 
They also consecrated a grove to Ptolemy for the 
assistance he had oiven to them. 



The Four New Kingdoms. 



325 



Demetrius then went to Greece, and tried to 
overthrow Cassander, but the other kings joined 
against him, and he was obliged to go home, for 
Seleucus was threatening Antigoneia. Antigonus 
and Demetrius collected their forces, and fought a 
great battle at Ipsus, where 
Seleucus brought trained ele- 
phants from India, which 
had lately begun to be used 
in battle, and were found to 
frighten horses so as to render 
them quite unmanageable. 
Demetrius, however, thought 
he had gained the victory, but 
he rushed on too fast, and left 
his father unsupported, so 
that poor old Antigonus, who 
was eighty years of age, was 
shut in by the troops of Sele- 
ucus and killed. Demetrius 
had to retreat to Ephesus 
with his broken army. 

The Athenians, who had made so much of him 
before, now turned against him, and made a law to 
punish with death anyone who should speak of 
making peace with him. However, Cassander 




MACEDONIAN SOLDIER. 



326 Young Folks' Histor of Greece 

died, and his sons quarreled about the kingdom, so 
that Demetrius found it a good opportunity to 
return to Greece, and very soon made the Athe- 
nians open their gates to him, which they did in 
fear and trembling ; but he treated them so merci- 
fully that they soon admired him as much as ever. 

Then he attacked Sparta, and defeated her king, 
taking the city which had so long held out against 
the Macedonians ; but he had only just done so 
when he heard that Ptolemy had recovered all 
Cyprus except Salamina, and that Lysimachus had 
seized all Asia Minor, so that nothing was left to 
him but his army. 

But there was a wonderful change still to befall 
him. Cassander's sons, as had been said, were 
disputing for the kingdom. Their mother, Thes- 
salonica, a daughter of Philip of Macedon, favored 
the youngest, and this so enraged the eldest that 
he killed her with his own hand. His brother 
called on Demetrius to help him, and he came with 
his army ; but on some fancy that the youth was 
plotting against him, he had him put to death, and 
convinced the Macedonians that the act was just. 
They would not have the murderer of his owii 
mother as their king, but chose Demetrius himself 
to be king of Macedon, so that almost at the same 



The Four New Kingdoms. 327 

time lie lost one kingdom and gained another, and 
this last remained in his family for several genera- 
tions. He tried to regain Asia, but did not succeed ; 
indeed he was once again obliged to fly from 
Macedonia in disguise. He had learned to admire 
the splendors of the East, wore a double diadem on 
his head, and wonderful sandals ; and he had also 
ordered skilful weavers and embroiderers to make 
him a mantle, on which the system of the universe 
as then understood — the earth in the centre, with 
the moon, sun, and planets, and every fixed star 
then discovered — was to be embroidered in gold. 

The Macedonians had not been used to see their 
kings crowned at all, or differently dressed from 
themselves, and they had hardly borne such as- 
sumption of state from Alexander himself, in the 
height of his pomp and glory, and when he had 
newly taken the throne of the kings of Persia ; and 
they were much offended at Demetrius' splendor, 
and still more at his pride and haughtiness of 
manner, and inattention to those who had to make 
any request from him. 

One day, when he was passing through the streets, 
some persons brought him some petitions, which he 
received more graciously than usual, and placed 
them in one of the folds of his robe ; but as soon as 



328 Young Folks' History of Grre 



ece. 



he came to a bridge over a river he threw them into 
the water, to the great offence and disappointment 
of the poor people who had brought them. 

This was very unlike Ptolemy, who was a wise, 
clear-headed man, with much of Alexander's spirit 




ALEXANDRIA. 



of teaching and improving people under him, and 
who ruled so as to make himself much beloved in 
Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Palestine. The new 
city of Alexandria was his capital, and under him 
and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus it grew to be a 



The Four New Kingdoms. 329 

great merchant city, and also a school of art, science, 
and philosophy almost as famous as Athens, and 
with a library containing all the chief books in the 
world, including the Old Testament. This was 
translated into Greek by 70 learned Jews, and 
therefore called the Septuagint. 

Seleucus, king of Syria, held all the lands from 
Persia to Asia Minor. His capital Antioch, in 
Syria, which he had built and named after his son 
Antiochus, and which became a very splendid and 
beautiful city, full of a light-minded, merry people, 
fond of games and shows. He built many other 
places, calling them after himself or his son, and 
placing Greeks to live in them. Thus, though 
Alexander only reigned twelve years, he had made 
a great difference to the world, for the Greek 
language, learning, and habits were spread all over 
the East, and every well-taught person was brought 
up in them. So that, while the grand old Greek 
states were in bondage, and produced no more 
great men, their teachings had spread farther than 
they ever thought. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PYKRHUS, KING OF EPIRTIS. 
B.C. 287. 

TO the westward of Greece lay a mountainous 
land, bordered by the Adriatic Sea, and in 
old times called Epirus* The people spoke a sort 
of barbarous Greek, worse than that of the Mace- 
donians ; but the royal family were pure Greeks, 
and believed themselves to be descended from 
Achilles ; and Alexander's mother, Olympias, had 
been one of them. In the wars and confusion that 
followed upon Alexander's death, the Epirot king, 
iEacides, took part, and this led to a rising against 
him, ending in his being killed, with all his family, 
except his little two-year-old son, named Pyrrhus, 
\vho was saved by some faithful servants. They fled 
towards the city of Megara, on the border of Mace- 
don, but they only reached it late at night, and 

330 



PyrrJius, King of Epirus. 331 

there was a rough and rapid river between, swelled 
by rains. They called to the people on the other 
side, and held up the little child, but the rushing 
of the river drowned their voices, and their words 
were not understood. At last one of them peeled 
off a piece of bark from an oak tree, and scratched 
on it with the tongue of a buckle an account of 
their distress, and fastening it to a stone, threw it 
over. The Megarians immediately made a sort of 
raft with trees, and, floating over, brought little 
Pyrrhus and his friends across ; but finding Mace- 
don not safe, since Cassander had been the enemy 
of JEacides, they went on to Illyria, where they 
found the king, Glaucias, sitting with his queen. 
Putting the child on the ground, they began to tell 
their story. At first the king was unwilling to 
grant him shelter, being afraid of Cassander ; but 
the little fellow, crawling about, presently came 
near, and laying hold of his leg, pulled himself 
upon his feet, and looked up in his face. The 
pretty unconscious action of a suppliant so moved 
Glaucias that he took him up in his arms, and gave 
him into those of the queen, bidding her have him 
bred up among their own children ; and though 
Cassander offered 200 talents, he would not give 
up the boy. 



332 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

When Pyrrhus was twelve years old, Glaucias 
sent an army to restore him to his throne, and 
guarded him there. He was high-spirited, brave, 
and gracious, but remarkable looking, from his up- 
per teeth being all in one, without divisions. When 
he was seventeen, while he was gone to Illyria to 
the wedding of one of Glaucias' sons, his subjects 
rose against him, and made one of his cousins king. 
He then went to Demetrius, who had married his 
elder sister, and fought under him at the battle of 
Ipsus ; after which Demetrius sent him as a hostage 
to Alexandria, and his grace and spirit made him 
so great a favorite with Ptolemy that he gave him 
his step daughter Berenice in marriage, and helped 
him to raise an army with which he recovered his 
kingdom of Epirus. 

He had not long been settled there before the 
Macedonians, who had begun to hate Demetrius, 
heard such accounts of Pyrrhus' kindness as a man 
and skill as a warrior, that the next time a war 
broke out they all deserted Demetrius, who was 
forced to fly in the disguise of a common soldier, 
and his wife poisoned herself in despair. However, 
Demetrius did not lose courage, but left his son 
Antigonus to protect Greece, and went into Asia 
Minor, hoping to win back some of his father's 



Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. 333 

old kingdom from Seleucus, but he could get no- 
body to join him ; and after wandering about in 
hunger and distress in the Cilician mountains, he 
was forced to give himself up a prisoner to Sele- 
ucus, who kept him in captivity, but treated him 
kindly, and let him hunt in the royal park. His 
son Antigonus, however, who still held Greece, 
wrote to offer himself as a hostage, that his father 
might be set free ; but before he could reach Syria, 
Demetrius the City-taker had died of over-eating 
and drinking in his captivity, and only the urn 
containing his ashes could be sent to his son m 
Greece. 

Pyrrhus had not kept Macedon long, for Lysi- 
machus attacked him, and the fickle Macedonians 
all went over to the Thracian, so that he was 
obliged to retreat into his own kingdom of Epirus ; 
whilst Seleucus and Lysimachus began a war, in 
which Lysimachus was killed ; and thus both 
Thrace and Macedon were in the hands of Seleucus, 
who is therefore commonly called the Conqueror. 
He was the last survivor of all Alexander's gene- 
rals, and held all his empire except Egypt ; but 
while taking possession of Macedonia he was mur* 
dered by a vile Egyptian Greek, whom he had be* 
friended, named Ptolemy Keraunus. This man, in 



334 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

the confusion that followed, managed to make him^ 
self king of Macedon. 

But just at this time the Kelts, or Gauls, the 
same race Avho used to dwell in Britain and Gaul, 
made one of their great inroads from the mountains. 
The Macedonians thought them savages, easy to 
conquer ; but it turned out otherwise. The Kelts 
defeated them entirely, cut off Ptolemy Keraunus' 
head, and carried it about upon a pole, and overran 
all Thrace and Macedon. Then they advanced to 
the Pass of Thermopylae, found the way over 
Mount CEta by which Xerxes had surprised the 
Spartans, and were about to plunder Delphi, their 
Bran, or chief, being reported to say that the gods 
did not want riches as much as men did. The 
Greeks, in much grief for their beloved sanctuary, 
assembled to fight for it, and they were aided by a 
terrible storm and earthquake, which dismayed the 
Gauls, so that the next morning they were in a 
dispirited state, and could not stand against the 
Greeks. The Bran was wounded, and finding that 
the battle was lost, called the other chiefs round 
him, advised them to kill all the wounded men, 
and make their retreat as best they might, and then 
stabbed himself to set the example. The others 
tried to retreat, but were set upon by the Greeks, 



Pyrrhus, King of Upirus. 335 

tormented, and starved ; and it is said that all who 
had marched to Delphi perished, and the only 
Gauls of all this host who survived were a party by 
the name of Galatians, and still kept up their own 
language. 

When they had thus cut off Keraunus, Antigonus 
came from Greece, and took possession of Macedon. 
He made a treaty with Antiochus, who had suc- 
ceeded his father Seleucus in Syria, and thenceforth 
the family founded by Antigonus the One-eyed held 
Macedon. This Antigonus is called Gonatas, from 
the name of a guard for the knee which he wore. 

Pyrrhus, in the meantime, set out on a wild expe- 
dition to help the Greek colonies in Italy against the 
Romans, hoping to make himself as famous in the 
West as Alexander had done in the East ; but the 
story of his doings there belongs to the history of 
Rome, so that I will leave it. He was absent six 
years, and came home unsuccessful to harass 
Antigonus again. For a few years the Mace- 
donians again went over to Pyrrhus, and he tried 
to conquer Greece, marching against Sparta with 
25,000 men 2000 horses, and 24 elephants. He 
assaulted the city, but Spartan bravery was still 
enough to beat him off twice. However, he win- 
tered ill the Peloponnesus, and in the spring 



336 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

attacked the city of Argos, which was watched 
over by Antigonus, with his army, on a hill near at 
hand. Pyrrhus had shown himself so skilful a 
general that Antigonus would not fight a battle 
with him, and at night some traitors invited 
Pyrrhus into Argos, with some of his troops , but 
another party admitted Antigonus' son and his 
forces. In the morning Pyrrhus saw how he had 
been caught, and sent a message to his son 
Helenus outside to break down part of the wall, 
that he might retreat ; but there was some blunder 
in the message, and Helenus thought he was to 
come in to help his father, so his men going in and 
Pyrrhus' going out met in the gateway and choked 
it. Matters were made worse by one of the ele- 
phants falling down and blocking up the street, 
while another went mad, and ran about trampling 
down the crowd and trumpeting. Pyrrhus kept in 
the rear, trying to guard his men through the 
streets, when an Argive slightly wounded him, and 
as he was rushing to revenge the blow, the mother 
of the man, who was looking down from her 
window above, threw down a tile, hoping to save 
him, and struck Pyrrhus on the back of the neck. 
He fell down stunned, and a soldier cut off his head, 
and carried it to Antigonus, who turned away in 



The Four New Kingdoms. 337 

tears at the sight of this sad remnant of the ablest 
captain in Greece, and caused Pyrrhus' body to be 
honorably buried in the temple of Ceres. Pyrrhus 
was only forty-six years old when he was thus slain 
in the year 272. 

There is a story of a conversation between 
Pyrrhus and a philosopher named Kineas, just as 
he was setting off for Italy. " What shall you do 
with these men ? " asked Kineas. " Overcome Italy 
and Rome," said Pyrrhus. "And what next?" 
"Then Sicily will be easily conquered." "Is that 
all?" "Oh no; Carthage and Lybia .may be sub- 
dued next." " And then ? " " Then we may secure 
Macedon and Greece." " And then ? " " Then we 
may eat and drink and discourse." "And pray," 
said Kineas, "why should we not do so at once?" 

22 



CHAPTER XXXTV. 

ARATUS AND THE ACHAIAN LEAGUE. 
B.C. 267. 

ANTIGONUS GONATAS was now quite the 
most powerful person left in Macedon or 
Greece, and though Sparta and Athens tried to get 
the help of Egypt against him, they could do 
nothing to shake off his power. 

There were twelve little cities in the Peloponne- 
sus, which were all united together in one league, 
called the Achaian, each governing itself, but all 
joining together against any enemy outside. In the 
good old times they had sent men to the wars as 
allies of Sparta, but they had never had a man of 
much mark among them. In the evil times, Sicyon, 
a city near Achaia, fell under the power of a tyrant, 
and about the time that Pyrrhus was killed, 
Clinias, a citizen of Sicyon, made a great attempt 

338 



Aratus and the Achaian League. 339 

to free his townsmen, but he was found out, his 
house attacked, and he and his family all put to 
death, except his son Aratus, a little boy of seven 
years old, who ran away from the dreadful sight, 
and went wandering about the town, till by chance 
he came into the house of the tyrant's sister. She 
took pity on the poor boy, hid him from her brother 
all day, and at night sent him to Argos to some 
friends of his father, by whom he was brought up. 

When he was only twenty he wrote to his friends 
at Sicyon, and finding them on the same mind with 
himself, he climbed the walls at night and met 
them. The people gathered round him, and he 
caused it to be proclaimed with a loud voice, 
" Aratus, the son of Clinias, calls on Sicyon to 
resume her liberty/' The people all began rushing 
to the tyrant's house. He fled by an underground 
passage, and his house was set on fire, but not one 
person on either side was killed or wounded. 
Aratus was resolved to keep Sicyon free, and in 
order to make her strong enough, persuaded the 
citizens to join her to the Achaian League , and he 
soon became the leading man among the Achaians, 
and his example made other cities come into the 
same band of union. He further tried to gain 
strength by an alliance with Egypt, and he went 



340 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

thither to see Ptolemy III., called Euergetes, or the 
Benefactor. It is said that Ptolemy's good-will 
was won by Aratus' love of art, and especially of 
pictures. Apelles, the greatest Grecian painter, 
was then living, and had taken a portrait of one of 
the tyrants of Sicyon. Aratus had destroyed all 
their likenesses, and he stood a long time looking at 
this one before he could condemn it, but at last he 
made up his mind that it must not be spared. 
Ptolemy liked him so much that he granted him 
150 talents for the city, and the Achaians were so 
much pleased that they twice elected him their 
general, and the second time he did them a great 
service. 

In the middle of the Isthmus of Corinth stood 
the city, and in the midst stood a fort called Acro- 
Corinthus, perched on a high hill in the very centre 
of the city, so that whoever held it was master of 
all to the south, and old Philip of Macedon used to 
call , it the Corinthian shackles of Greece. The 
king of Macedon, Antigonus III., now held it ; but 
Aratus devised a scheme to take it. A Corinthian 
named Erginus had come to Sicyon on business, and 
there met a friend of Aratus, to whom he chanced 
to mention that there was a narrow path leading 
up to the Acro-Corinthus at a place where the wall 



Aratus and the Achaian League. 341 

was low. Aratus heard of this, and promised Er- 
ginus sixty talents if he would guide him to the 
spot ; but as he had not the money, he placed all 
his gold and silver plate and his wife's jewels in 
pledge for the amount. 

On the appointed night Aratus came with 400 
men, carrying scaling-ladders, and placed them in 
the temple of Juno, outside the city, where they all 
sat down and took off their shoes. A heavy fog 
came on, and entirely hid them ; and Aratus, with 
100 picked men, came to the rock at the foot of the 
city wall, and there waited while Erginus and 
seven others, dressed as travelers, went to the gates 
and killed the sentinel and guard, without an alarm. 
Then the ladders were fixed, and Aratus came up 
with his men, and stood under the wall unseen, 
while four men with lights passed by them. Three 
of these they killed, but the fourth escaped, and 
gave the alarm. The trumpets were sounded, and 
every street was full of lights and swarmed with 
men ; but Aratus, meantime, was trying to climb 
the steep rocks, and groping for the path leading 
up to the citadel. Happily the fog lifted for a 
moment, the moon shone out, and he saw his way, 
and hastened up to the Acro-Corinthus, where he 
began to fight with the astonished garrison. The 



342 Young Folks" History of Greece. 

300 men whom he had left in the temple of Juno 
heard the noise in the city and saw the lights, then 
marched in and came to the foot of the rock, but 
not being able to find the path, they drew up at 
the foot of a precipice, sheltered by an overhanging 
rock, and there waited in much anxiety, hearing 
the battle overhead, but not able to join in it. The 
Macedonian governor, in the meantime, had called 
out his men, and was going up to support the guard 
in the fort, blowing his trumpets, when, as he 
passed these men, they dashed out on him, just as 
if they had been put in ambush on purpose, and 
so dismayed them in the confusion that they fancied 
the enemy five times as many, as the moon and the 
torches flashed on their armor, and they let them- 
selves all be made prisoners. 

By the time morning had come Corinth was in 
the hands of the Achaians, and Aratus came down 
from the fortress to meet the people in the theatre. 
His 400 men were drawn up in two lines at its 
entrances, and the Corinthians filled the seats, and 
shouted with an ecstacy of joy, for it was the first 
time for nearly a century that true Greeks had 
gained any advantage over Macedonians. Aratus 
was worn out by anxiety, his long march, and night 
of fighting, and as he stood leaning on his spear 



Aratus and the Achaian Leaaue. 343 

he could hardly rally strength, to address them, 
and while giving back to them the keys of their 
city, which they had never had since Philip's time, 
he exhorted them to join the League, which they 
did. The Macedonians were expelled, and Aratus 
put an Achaian garrison into the Acro-Corinthus. 

His whole care Avas to get Greece free from the 
Macedonians, and he drove them out from city 
after city, persuading each to join the Achaian 
League as it was delivered. Argos was still under 
a tyrant named Aristippus, and Aratus made 
many attempts to turn him out, by his usual fash- 
ion of night attacks. Once he got into the city, 
and fought there all day, though he w T as wounded 
with a lance in the thigh ; but he was obliged to 
retreat at night. However, he attacked the tyrant 
when out on an expedition, and slew him, but still 
could not set Argos free, as the tyrant's son Aris- 
tomenes still held it. 

However, Lysiades, the tyrant of Megalopolis, 
was so moved by admiration for the patriot that he 
resigned, and the city joined the League. In fact, 
Aratus was at this time quite the greatest man in 
Greece. He beat the iEtolians, when they were 
on a foray into the Achaian territories, and forced 
them to make peace ; and he tried also to win 



344 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Athens and Sparta to ilie common cause against 
Macedon, but there were jealousies in the way that 
hindered his success, and all his enterprises were 
rendered more difficult by his weakly health, which 
always made him suffer greatly from the fatigue 
and excitement of a battle. 




CHAPTER XXXV. 

AGIS AND THE REVIVAL OF SPARTA. 
B.C. 244—236. 

SPARTA had never been so overcome by Mace- 
don as the states north of the Isthmus, but 
all the discipline of Lycurgus had been forgotten, 
and the Ephors and Kings had become greedy, idle, 
and corrupt. One of the kings, named Leonidas, 
had gone to Antioch, married an Eastern wife, and 
learned all the Syrian and Persian vanities in which 
King Seleiicus delighted, and he brought these 
home to Sparta. The other king, Eudamidas, was 
such a miser, that on his death, in 244, his widow 
and his mother were said to possess more gold than 
all the rest of the people in the state put together ; 
but he left a son named Agis, most unlike himself. 
As soon as, in his childhood, Agis had heard the 

story of his great forefathers 5 he set himself to live 
345 



346 



Young Folks' History of Greece. 



like an ancient Spartan, giving up whatever Ly- 
curgus had forbidden, dressing and eating as 
plainly as he could, and always saying that he 
would not be king if he did not hope to make 
Sparta her true self again. When he became king, 
he was seen in the usual dress of a Greek uncrowned, 
as the first Leonidas and Agesilaus had been ; while 
the other king, ill named Leonidas, moved about in 

a diadem and purple robes 
and jewels, like a Persian 
Shah. 

Agis was resolved to bring 
back all the old rule. There 
were but 700 old Dorian Spar- 
tans left, and only about 100 
of these still had their family 
estates, while the others were 
starving; and most of the 
property was in the hands 
of women. Therefore the 
young king was resolved to 
have all given up and divided 
again, and he prevailed on his mother and grand- 
mother to throw all their wealth into the common 
stock, and also his mother's brother Agesilaus, who 
was willing, because he was so much in debt that 




Agis and the Revival of Sparta. 347 

he could hardly lose by any change. The other 
ladies made a great outcry, and Leonidas was very 
angry, but he did not dare to hinder all this, because 
all the high-born men who had been so poor, were 
on the young king's side. 

So there was a public assembly, and one of the 
Ephors proposed the reform, showing how ease and 
pleasure had brought their city low, and how hardi- 
hood and courage might yet bring back her true 
greatness. Leonidas spoke against the changes, 
but Agis argued with such fire and force that he 
won over all that were high-minded enough to 
understand him, and in especial Cleombrotus, the 
son-in-law of Leonidas. Agis laid down before the 
assembly all his father's vast hoards, and his 
example was followed by many ; but the other king 
put such difficulties in the way that the reformers 
found that they could do nothing unless they re- 
moved him, so they brought forward an old law, 
which forbade that any son of Hercules should 
reign who had married a foreign woman, or so- 
journed in a strange land. 

On hearing of this Leonidas took refuge in the 
temple of Athene, and as he did not appear when 
he was summoned before the Ephors, they deposed 
him, and named Cleombrotus in his stead; but 



348 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

when Agis found there was a plan for killing the 
old king, he took care to send him away in safety 
to Tegea, with his daughter Chilonis, who clave to 
him in trouble. 

Agis thought his uncle Agesilaus was heartily 
with the change, and so had him chosen one of the 
Ephors ; but, in truth, all Agesilaus wanted was to 
be free from his debts, and he persuaded the 3 r oung 
king that the lands could not be freshly divided till 
all debts had been cancelled. So all the bonds 
were brought into the market-place and burnt, 
while Agesilaus cried out that he had never seen 
so fine a fire ; but having done this, he was resolved 
not to part with his wealth, and delayed till the 
iEiolians made an attack on the Peloponnesus, and 
Aratus called on Sparta to assist the Achaians. 
Agis was sent at the head of an army to the 
Isthmus, and there behaved like an ancient Spartan 
king, sharing all the toils and hardships of the 
soldiers, and wearing nothing to distinguish him 
from them ; but while he was away everything had 
gone wrong at Sparta; people had gone back to 
their old bad habits, and Agesilaus was using his 
office of Ephor so shamefully that he had been 
obliged to have a guard of soldiers to protect him 
from the people , This behaviour had made the 



Agis and the Revival of Spartai 349 

people suspect his nephew of being dishonest in his 
reforms, and they had sent to recall Leonidas. 

Agesilaus fled, and Agis was obliged to take sanc- 
tuary in Athene's temple, and Cleombrotus in that 
of Neptune, where Leonidas found Mm. His wife 
Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself 
between him and her father, pleading for his life, 
and promising he should leave the city ; and 
Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but 
she clung to her husband, and went into exile with 
him. 

Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join 
him in the temple, being kept at home by the birth 
of her first babe. He never left the sanctuary, 
except to go to the baths, to which he was 
guarded by armed friends. At last two of these 
were bribed to betray him. One said, " Agis, I 
must take you to the Ephors," and the other threw 
a cloak over his head ; while Leonidas came up with 
a guard of soldiers and dragged him to prison, 
where the Ephors came to examine him. One 
asked him if he repented. "I can never repent of 
virtue," he said. 

They sentenced him to die ; and finding that his 
mother and grandmother were trying to stir up the 
people to demand that he should be heard in public, 



350 Voung Folks' History of Grreece* 

they sent the executioners at once to put mm to 
death. One of them came in tears, but Agis 
quickly said, " Weep not, friend ; I am happier than 
those who condemn me ; " and he held out his neck 
for the rope which strangled him just as his grand- 
mother and mother came in. The grandmother was 
strangled the next moment. The mother said, 
u May this be for the good of Sparta," and after 
laying out the limbs of her son and mother, was 
also put to death ; and the young widow Agiatis, 
with her babe, was carried to the house of Leonidas. 
The reform of Agis had lasted only three years, 
and he was but twenty-two, when his plans were 
thus cruelly cut short. 

Leonidas was thus left to reign alone, the first 
time such a thing had happened in Sparta. As 
poor Agiatis was a rich heiress, he kept her in the 
house, and married her to his son Cleomenes, a 
mere boy, much younger than herself. She was 
the fairest and wisest woman in Greece ; and 
though she always was cold, grave and stern 
towards the wicked old king, she loved his wife, 
and was gentle towards the young boy, who was 
blameless of his father's sin, and gave her all his 
heart for his whole life. He cared for nothing so 
much as to hear from her of Agis, his brave, self- 



Agis and the Revival of Sparta. 351 

denying ways, and noble plans ; and thus did they 
live, after the untimely death of Agis, strengthened 
by the study of the Stoic philosophy, which taught 
that virtue was the highest good, and that no suf- 
fering, not even death, was to be shunned in pur- 
suit of her. 

When Leonidas died, in 236, Cleomenes became 
the only king, but he was so young that Aratus 
and the Achaians thought it was a good time for 
extending the power of their league at the expense 
of Sparta ; so, though no w T ar was going on, Aratus 
sent a troop by night to seize Tegea and Orchome- 
nus, cities in alliance with Sparta. But his designs 
were found out in time for Cleomenes to strengthen 
the garrisons in both places, and march himself to 
a place called the Athenaeum, which guarded one 
of the passes into Laconia. 

This made the attempt fail, and Cleomenes wrote 
to ask the cause of the night march of the Achaians. 
Aratus answered that it was to hinder the fortifica- 
tion of the Athenaeum. 

"What was the use, then, of torches and scaling- 
ladders ? " asked Cleomenes. 

Aratus laughed, and asked a Spartan who was 
in exile what kind of youth this young king was ; 
and the Spartan made reply, " If you have any 



352 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

designs against Sparta, you liad better begin them 
before the game chicken's spurs are grown." 

It was a great pity that these two free states 
in Laconia and Achaia were only wasting their 
strength against each other, instead of joining 
against Macedon. 




CHAPTER XXXVL 

CLEOMENES AND THE FALL OF SPARTA. 
B.C. 236—222. 

ARATUS cared more for Achaia than for 
Greece, and soon was again at war with 
Sparta, and Cleomenes marched out against him. 
He retreated, and Cleomenes in great joy put his 
troops in mind how in old times the Spartans never 
asked how many were the foe, but only where they 
were. Then he followed the Achaians and gained 
a great victory ; indeed there was a doubt at first 
whether Aratus were not slain ; but he had marched 
off with the remnant of the army, and next was 
heard of as having taken Mantinea. 

This displeased the Ephors, and they called 
Cleomenes back. He hoped to be stronger by the 
aid of his fellow-king, and, as the little child of 

Agis had just died in his house, sent to invite home 
353 23 



354 Young Folks' History of Grreece* 

Archidamas, the brother of Agis, who was living in 
exile ; but the Ephors had the youth murdered as 
soon as he reached Laconia, and then laid on Cleo- 
menes both this murder and that of his little step- 
son Agis. But all the better sort held by him, and 
his mother Cratesiclea, and his wife Agiatis, so 
cleared him, that all trusted him, and he was again 
sent out with an army, and defeated Aratus. 

He was sure he could bring back good days to 
Sparta, if only he were free of the Ephors. One 
of these, who was on his side, went to sleep in a 
temple, and there had a dream that four of the 
chairs of the Ephors were taken away, and that he 
heard a voice saying, " This is best for Sparta." 
After this, he and Cleomenes contrived that the 
king should lead out an army containing most of 
the party against him. He took them by long 
marches to a great distance from home, and then 
left them at night with a few trusty friends, with 
whom he fell upon the Ephors at supper, and killed 
four of them, the only blood he shed in this matter. 
In the morning he called the people together, and 
showed them how the Ephors had taken too much 
power, and how ill they had used it, especially in 
the murder of Agis ; and the people agreed hence- 
forth to let him rule without them. Then all debts 



Cleomenes and the Fall of Sparta. 355 

were given up, all estates resigned to be divided 
again, Cleomenes himself being the first to set the 
example, and the partition was made. But as one 
line of the Heracleid kings was extinct, Cleomenes 
made his brother Euclidas reign with him, and was 
able to bring back all the old ways of Lycurgus, 
the hard fare and plain living, so that those who 
had seen the Eastern state of the upstart Mace- 
donian soldiers wondered at the sight of the son of 
Hercules, descendant of a line of thirty-one kings, 
showing his royalty only in the noble simplicity of 
his bearing. 

Mantinea turned out the Achaians and invited 
Cleomenes back, and now it was plain that the real 
question was whether the Spartan kingdom or the 
Achaian League should lead the Peloponnesus — 
in truth, between Aratus and Cleomenes. Another 
victory was gained over the Achaians, a treaty was 
made, and they were going to name Cleomenes 
head of the League, when he fell ill. He had over- 
tried his strength by long marches, and chilled 
himself by drinking cold water ; he broke a blood- 
vessel, and had to be carried home in a litter, 
causing meantime the Achaian prisoners to be set 
free, to show that he meant to keep the treaty. 

But Aratus, in his jealousy, forgot that the 



356 Young Folks' History of Greece* 

great work of his youtn had been to get free of 
Macedon, and in order to put down Sparta and 
Cleomenes, actually asked the help of Antigonus, 
king of Macedon, and brought his hated troops back 
into the Peloponnesus, promising to welcome them, 
if only Cleomenes might be put down. 

The brave young king had recovered and taken 
Argos, and soon after Corinth drove out the Achaian 
garrison and gave themselves to him; but the 
great Macedonian force under Antigonus himself 
was advancing, and Corinth in terror went over to 
him, the other allies deserted, and Cleomenes was 
marching back to Sparta, when a messenger met 
him at Tegea with tidings of the death of his be- 
loved wife. He listened steadily, gave orders for 
the defence of Tegea, and then, traveling all night, 
went home and gave way to an agony of grief, with 
his mother and two little children. 

He had but 5000 Spartans, and his only hope 
was in getting aid from Ptolemy the Benefactor, 
king of Egypt. This was promised, but only on 
condition that he would send as hostages to Egypt 
his mother and babes. He was exceedingly grieved, 
and could not bear to tell his mother ; but she saw 
his distress, and found out the cause from his 
friends. She laughed in hopes of cheering him. 



Cleomenes and the Fall of Sparta. 357 

" Was this what you feared to tell me ? Put me on 
board ship at once, and send this old carcase where 
it may be of the most use to Sparta." He escorted 
her, at the head of the whole army, to the promon- 
tory of Tsenarus, where the temple of Neptune 
looks out into the sea. In the temple they parted, 
Cleomenes weeping in such bitter sorrow that his 
mother's spirit rose. " Go to, king of Sparta," she 
said. " Without doors, let none see us weep, nor 
do anything contrary to the honor and dignity of 
Sparta. That at least is our own power, though, 
for the rest, success or failure depends on the gods." 
So she sailed away, and Cleomenes went back to 
do his part. The Achaians had not only given 
Antigonus the title of Head of the League, but 
had set up his statues, and were giving him the 
divine honors that had been granted to Alexander 
and to Demetrius the City-taker. 

The only part of the Peloponnesus that still held 
out was Laconia. Cleomenes guarded all the 
passes, though the struggle was almost without 
hope, for little help came from Egypt, only a letter 
from brave old Cratesiclea, begging that whatever 
was best for the country might be done without 
regard to an old woman or a child. Cleomenes 
then let the slaves buy their freedom, and made 



358 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

2000 soldiers from among them, and marching out 
with these he surprised and took the Achaian city 
of Megalopolis. One small party of citizens, under 
a brave young man named Philopoemen, fought, 
while the rest had time to escape to Messene. 
Cleomenes offered to give them back the place if 
they would join with Sparta, but they refused, and 
he had the whole town plundered and burnt as a 
warning to the other Peloponnesians, and the next 
year he ravaged Argolis, and beat down the stand- 
ing corn with great wooden swords. 

But Antigonus had collected a vast force to 
subdue the Peloponnesus, and Cleomenes prepared 
for his last battle at Sellasia, a place between two 
hills. On one named Evas he placed his brother 
Euclidas, on the other named Olympus he posted 
himself, with his cavalry in the middle. He had 
but 20,000 men, and Antigonus three times as 
many, with all the Achaians among them. Euclidas 
did not, as his brother had intended, charge down 
the hill, but was driven backwards over the preci- 
pices that lay behind him. The cavalry were 
beaten by Philopoemen, who fought all day, 
though a javelin had pierced both his legs; and 
Cleomenes found it quite impossible to. break the 



Cleomenes and the Fall of Sparta. 359 

Macedonian phalanx, and out of his 6000 Spartans 
found himself at the end of the day with only 200. 

With these he rode back to Sparta, where he 
stopped in the market-place to tell his people that 
all was lost, and they had better make what terms 
they could. They should decide whether his life 
or death were best for him, and while they delib- 
erated, he turned towards his own empty house, 
but he could not bear to enter it. A slave girl 
taken from Megalopolis ran out to bring him food 
and drink, but he would taste nothing, only being 
tired out he leant his arm sideways against a pillar 
and laid his head on it, and so he waited in silence 
till word was brought him that the citizens wished 
him to escape. 

He quietly left Sparta and sailed for Alexandria, 
where the king, Ptolemy the Benefactor, at first 
was short and cold with him, because he would not 
cringe to him, but soon learned to admire him, 
treated him as a brother, promised him help to 
regain Sparta, and gave him a pension, which he 
spent in relieving other exiled Greeks. But the 
Benefactor died, and his son, Ptolemy Philopator, 
was a selfish wretch, who hated and dreaded the 
grave, stern man who was a continual rebuke to 
him, and who, the Alexandrians said, walked about 



360 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

like a lion in a sheepfold. He refused the fleet his 
father had promised, would not let Cleomenes go 
back alone to try his fortune on Antigonus' death, 
and at last, on some report of his meaning to attack 
Cyrene, had him shut up with his friends in a large 
room. They broke forth, and tried to fight their 
way to a ship, but they were hemmed in, no one 
came to their aid, and rather than be taken prison- 
ers, they all fell on their own swords ; and on the 
tidings, Ptolemy commanded all the women and 
children to be put to death. Cratesiclea saw her 
two grandsons slain before her eyes, and then cry- 
ing, "Oh children, where are ye gone?" herself 
held out her neck for the rope. 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 

PHILOPCEMEN, THE LAST OF THE GREEKS. 
B.C. 236—184. 

THE jealousy and rivalry of Aratus and the 
Achaians had made them put themselves 
under the power of Macedon, in order thus to over- 
throw Sparta. Aratus seemed to have lost all his 
skill and spirit, for when the robber iEtolians again 
made an attack on the Peloponnesus, he managed 
so ill as to have a great defeat ; and the Achaians 
were forced again to call for the help of the Mace- 
donians, whose king was now Philip, son to An- 
tigonus. 

A war went on for many years between the 
Macedonians, with the Achaians on the one hand 
and the iEtolians on the other. Aratus was a 
friend and adviser to Philip, but would gladly 
have loosened the yoke he had helped to lay on 

361 



362 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

Greece. When the old Messenian town of Ithome 
fell into the hands of Philip, he went into the tem- 
ple of Jupiter, with Aratus and another adviser 
called Demetrius the Pharian, to consult the sacri- 
fices as to whether he should put a garrison into 
Ithome to overawe Messenia. The omens were 
doubtful, and Philip asked his two friends what they 
thought. Demetrius said, " If you have the soul 
of a priest, jou will restore the fort to the Messe- 
nians ; if you have the soul of a prince, you will 
hold the ox by both his horns." 

The ox w^as, of course, the Peloponnesus, and the 
other horn was the Acro-Corinthus, which, with 
Ithome, gave Philip power over the whole penin- 
sula. The king then asked Aratus' advice. He 
said, " Thieves nestle in the fastnesses of rocks. 
A king's best fortress is loyalty and love ; " and at 
his words Philip turned away, and left the fort to 
its own people. He was at that time a youth full 
of good promise, but he let himself be led astray by 
the vices and pleasures of his court, and withdrew 
his favor from Aratus. Then he began to misuse 
the Messenians, and had their country ravaged. 
Aratus, who was for the seventeenth time general 
of the League, made a complaint, and Philip, in re- 
turn, contrived that he should be slowly poisoned. 



Philopoemen, the Last of the Greeks. 363 

He said, nothing ; only once, when a friend noticed 
his illness, he said, " This is the effect of the friend- 
ship of kings." He died in 213, and just about 
this time Philopoemen of Megalopolis returned 
from serving in the Cretan army to fight for his 
country. He was a thoroughly noble-hearted man, 
and a most excellent general, and he did much to 
improve the Achaian army. In the meantime 
Sparta had fallen under the power of another tyrant, 
called Nabis, a horribly cruel wretch, who had had 
a statue made in the likeness of his wife, with nails 
and daggers all over her breast. His enemies were 
put into her arms ; she clasped them and thus they 
died. He robbed the unhappy people of Sparta ; 
and all the thieves, murderers, and outlaws of the 
country round were taken into his service, and par- 
ties of them sent out to collect plunder all over the 
Peloponnesus. At last one of his grooms ran away 
with some horses, and took refuge at Megalopolis, 
and this Nabis made a cause for attacking both 
that city and Messenia; but at last Philopoemen 
was made general of the Achaian League, and gave 
the wretch such a defeat as forced him to keep at 
home, while Philopoemen ravaged Laconia. 

Philip of Macedon offered to come and drive 
out Nabis if the Achaians would help him, but they 



364 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

distrusted him, and did not choose to go to war 
with the Romans, whom the robber iEtolians had 
called from Italy to assist them. However, Philip 
reduced Nabis to make all kinds of promises and 
treaties, which, of course, he did not keep, but 
invited in the iEtolians to assist him. This, how- 
ever, brought his punishment on him, for soon after 
their arrival these allies of his murdered him, and 
began to rob all Laconia. Philopcemen and his 
Achaians at once marched into the country, helped 
the Spartans to deliver themselves from the robbers, 
and persuaded them to join the League. They 
were so much pleased with him that they resolved 
to give him Nabis' palace and treasure, but he was 
known to hate bribes so much that nobody could 
at first be found to make him the offer. One man 
was sent to Megalopolis, but when he saw Philo- 
poemen's plain, grave, hardy life, and heard how 
much he disapproved of sloth and luxury, he did 
not venture to say a word about the palace full of 
Eastern magnificence, but went back to Sparta. 
He was sent again, and still found no opportunity ; 
and when, the third time, he did speak, Philo- 
poemen thanked the Spartans, but said he advised 
them not to spend their riches on spoiling honest 
men, whose help they might have at no cost at all, 



Philopoemen, the Last of the Greeks. 365 

but rather to use them in buying over those who 
made mischief among them. 

Wars were going on at this time between Philip 
of Macedon, on the one side, and the iEtolians on 
the other. Philip's ally was Antiochus the Great, 
the Greek king of Syria ; the JEtolians had called 
in the Romans, that great, conquering Italian na- 
tion, whose plan was always to take the part of 
some small nation against a more powerful one, 
break the strength of both, and then join them to 
their own empire. But the Achaians did not know 
this, and wished them well, while they defeated the 
Macedonians at the great battle of Cynocephalse, or 
the Dog's Head Rocks, in Thessaly. Philip was 
obliged to make peace, and one condition required 
of him was that he should give up all claims to 
power over Greece. Then at Corinth, at the Isth- 
mian games, the Roman consul, Quintius Flaminius, 
proclaimed that the Greek states were once more 
free. Such a shout of joy was raised that it is said 
that birds flying in the air overhead dropped down 
with the shock, and Flaminius was almost stifled 
by the crowds of grateful Greeks who came round 
him to cover him with garlands and kiss his hands. 

But, after all, the Romans meant to keep a hold 
on Greece, though they left the cities to themselves 



366 Young Folks* History of G-reece. 

for a little while. The Spartans who had been 
banished by Nabis had not returned home, but 
lived a life of robbery, which was thought to be 
favored by Philopoemen, and this offended those at 
home, some of whom plundered a town called Las. 
The Achaians demanded that the guilty should be 
given up to them for punishment, and a war began, 
which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in which 
Philopoemen forgot all but the old enmity between 
Achaia and Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, 
pulled down the walls, besides abolishing the laws 
of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed 
since the fall of Cleomenes. Many citizens were 
sent into banishment, and these went to Rome to 
complain of the Achaians. While they were gone 
the Messenians rose against the League, while 
Philopoemen was tying sick of a fever at Argos ; 
but though he was ill, and seventy years old, he 
collected a small troop of Megalopolitan horsemen, 
to join the main army with them. But he met the 
full force of the Messenians, and while fighting 
bravely to shelter his young followers, received a 
blow on the head which stunned him, so that he 
was made prisoner, and carried to Messene. There 
his enemies showed him in the theatre, but the 
people only recollected how noble he was, and how 



Philopcemen, the Last of the Greeks. 367 

he had defended all Greece from Nabis. So his 
enemies hurried him away, and put him in an un- 
derground dungeon, where, at night, they sent an 
executioner to carry him a dose of poison. Philo- 
pcemen raised himself with difficulty, for he was 
very weak, and asked the man whether he could 
tell him what had become of his young Megalopol- 
itan friends. The man replied that he thought 
they had most of them escaped. " You bring good 
news," said Philopoemen ; then, swallowing the 
draught, he laid himself on his back, and almost in- 
stantly died. He is called the Last of the Greeks, 
for there never was a great man of the old sort 
after him. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE FALL OF GREECE. 

B.C. 189—146. 

AFTER the death of Philopoemen there was 
little real spirit left in the Achaians, and 
Callicrates, who became the leading man among 
them, led them to submit themselves to the senate 
of Rome, and do as it pleased with regard to Sparta 
and Messene, 

Philip of Macedon was at war with Rome all his 
life, and his son Perseus went on with it. Marcus 
Paullus jEmilius, one of the best and bravest of the 
Romans, was sent to subdue him, and the great 
battle was fought in 188, at Pydna, near Mount 
Olympus. The night before the battle there was 
an eclipse of the moon, which greatly terrified the 
Macedonians ; but the Romans had among them an 
officer who knew enough of the heavenly bodies to 

368 



The Fall of Greece. 369 

have told the soldiers of it beforehand, and its cause. 
The Macedonians being thus discouraged, gave 
way, and fled as soon as the battle seemed to be 
going against them ; and Perseus himself galloped 
from the field to Pella, where he was so beside him- 
self with despair that he stabbed two of his coun- 
selors who tried to show him the mistakes he had 
made. But as jEmilius advanced, he was forced to 
retreat before him, even into the island of Samo- 
thrace, which was sacred soil, whence he could not 
be taken by force. The Romans watched all 
round the island, and he dreaded that the Samo- 
thracians should give him up to them; so he 
bargained with a Cretan shipmaster to take him 
and all his treasure on board his ship, and carry 
him off at night. The Cretan received half the 
treasure, and Perseus crept out at a small window, 
crossed a garden, and reached the wharf, where, to 
his horror, he found that the treacherous captain 
had sailed off with the treasure, and left him be- 
hind. 

There was nothing for him to do but to yield to 
the Romans. He came into the camp in mourning, 
and JEmilius gave him his hand and received him 
kindly, but kept him a prisoner, and formed Mace- 
don into a province under Roman government. 

24 



370 Young Folks'' History of Grreece. 

iEmilius himself went on a journey through, the 
most famous Greek cities, especially admiring 
Athens, and looking at the places made famous by 
historians, poets, and philosophers. He took Poly- 
bius, a learned Athenian philosopher, who wrote 
the history of this war, to act as tutor to his two 
sons, though both were young men able to fight in 
this campaign, and from that time forward the 
Romans were glad to have Greek teachers for 
their sons, and Greek was spoken by them as freely 
and easily as their own Latin ; every well-educated 
man knew the chief Greek poets by heart, and was 
of some school of philosophy, either Stoic or Epi- 
curean, but the best men were generally Stoics. 
Perseus and his two young sons were taken to 
Rome, there, according to the Roman fashion, to 
march in the triumph of the conqueror, namely, the 
procession in which the general returned home with 
all his troops. It was a shame much feared by the 
conquered princes, and the cruel old rule was that 
they should be put to death at the close of the 
march. Paullus JEmilius was, however, a man of 
kind temper, and had promised Perseus to spare his 
life. The unfortunate king begged to be spared 
the humiliation of walking in the triumph, but 
iEmilius could not disappoint the Roman people, 



The Fall of Greece. 371 

and answered that " the favor was in Perseus' own 
power," meaning, since he knew no better, that to 
die should prevent what was so much dreaded. 
Perseus, however, did not take the counsel, but 
lived in an Italian city for the rest of his life. 

After Macedon was ruined the Romans resolved 
to put down all stirrings of resistance to them in 
the rest of Greece. Their friend Callicrates, there- 
fore, accused all the Achaians who had been 
friendly to Perseus, or who had any brave spirit — 
1000 in number — of conspiring against Rome, and 
called on the League to sentence them to death ; 
but as this proposal was heard with horror, they 
w^ere sent to Rome to justify themselves, and the 
Roman senate, choosing to suppose they had been 
judged by the League, sentenced them never to re- 
turn to Achaia. Polybius was among them, so that 
his home was thenceforth in the house of his pupils, 
the sons of iEmilius. Many times did the Achaians 
send entreaties that they might be set at liberty, 
and at last, after seventeen years, Polybius' pupils 
persuaded the great senator Cato to speak for them, 
and he did so, but in a very rough, unfeeling way. 
"Anyone who saw us disputing whether a set of 
poor old Greeks should be buried by our grave- 
diggers or their own would think we had nothing 



372 Young Folks'* History of Greece. 

else to do," he said. So the Romans consented to 
their going home ; but when they asked to have all 
their rank and honors restored to them, Cato said, 
" Polybius, you are less wise than Ulysses. You 
want to go back into the Cyclops' cave for the 
wretched rags and tatters you left behind you 
there." After all, Polybius either did not go home 
or did not stay there, for he was soon again with his 
beloved pupils ; and in the seventeen years of exile 
the 1000 had so melted away that only 300 went 
home again. 

But the very year after their return a fresh 
rising was made by the Macedonians, under a 
pretender who claimed to be the son of Perseus, 
and by the Peloponnesians, with the Achaians and 
Spartans at their head, while the Corinthians in- 
sulted the Roman ambassadors. A Roman general 
named Quintus Metellus was sent to subdue them, 
and routed the Macedonians at the battle of Scar- 
phaea, but after that another general named Mum- 
mius was sent out. The Achaians had collected all 
their strength against him, and in the first skirmish 
gained a little success ; and this encouraged them 
to risk a battle, in which they were so confident 
of victory that they placed their wives and children 
on a hill to watch them, and provided wagons to 



The Fall of Greece. 873 

carry away the spoil. The battle was fought at 
Leucoptera, near the Isthmus, and all this boasting 
was soon turned into a miserable defeat. Diaeus, 
who commanded the Greeks, was put to flight, and 
riding off to Megalopolis in utter despair, he killed 
his wife and children, to prevent their falling into 
the hands of the enemy, and then poisoned himself. 
The other Achaians at first retreated into Cor- 
inth, and in the course of the night scattered 
themselves each to his own city. In the morning 
Mummius marched in and gave up the unhappy 
city to plunder. All the men were slain, all the 
women and children taken for slaves, and when all 
the statues, pictures, and jewels had been gathered 
out of the temples and houses, the place was set on 
fire, and burnt unceasingly for several days ; the 
walls were pulled down, and the city blotted out 
from Greece. There was so much metal of all 
kinds in the burning houses that it all became fused 
together, and produced a new and valuable metal 
called Corinthian brass. The Romans were at this 
time still very rude and ignorant, and did not at 
all understand the value and beauty of the works 
of art they carried off. Polybius saw two soldiers 
making a dice-board of one of the most famous 
pictures in Greece; and Mummius was much 



374 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

laughed at for telling the captains of the ships who 
took home some of the statues to exhibit in his 
triumph that if they lost them they should supply 
new ones at their own cost. The Corinthians 
suffered thus for having insulted the ambassadors. 
The other cities submitted without a blow, and 
were left untouched to govern themselves, but in 
subjection to Rome, and with Roman garrisons in 
their citadels. Polybius was sent round them to 
assure them of peace, and they had it for more than 
500 years, but the freedom of Greece was gone for 
ever. 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE GOSPEL IN" GREECE. 
B.C. 146— A.D. 60. 

AFTER a time Macedon and Achaia were 
made by the Romans into provinces, each of 
which had a governor who had been one year in a 
magistrate's office at Rome, and then was sent out 
to rule in a province for three or for five j^ears. 

In 146, nearly a hundred years after the ruin of 
Corinth, Julius Caesar built it up again in great 
strength and beauty, and made it the capital of 
Achaia. As it stood where the Isthmus was only 
six miles across, and had a beautiful harbor on each 
side, travelers who did not wish to go round the 
dangerous headlands of the Peloponnesus used to 
land on one side and embark on the other. Thus 
Corinth became one of the great stations for troops, 
and also a mart for all kinds of merchandise, and 



376 Young Folks' History of Grreeee. 

was always full of strangers, both Greeks and 
Jews. 

The Romans, as conquerors, had rights to be 
tried only by their own magistrates and laws, and 
these laws were generally just. They were, how- 
ever, very hard on subject nations ; and therefore, 
the best thing that could happen to a man was to 
be made a Roman citizen, and this was always done 
to persons of rank, by way of compliment — some- 
times to whole cities. 

Athens had never had a great statesman or 
soldier in her since the time of Phocion, but her 
philosophers and orators still went on discoursing 
in the schools, and for four hundred years at least 
Athens was a sort of university town, where the 
rich young men from Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, 
Asia Minor, and Syria came to see the grand old 
buildings and works of art, and to finish their 
education. For though the great men of Greece 
were all dead, their works, both in stone and in 
writing, still remained, and were the models of all 
the world, and their language was spoken all over 
the East. The Romans' own tongue, Latin, was 
used at home, of course, but every gentleman knew 
Greek equally well, and all the Syrians, Jews, and 
Egyptians who had much intercourse with them 



The Grospel in Greece. 377 

used Greek as the language sure to be known 
— much as French is now used all over Europe. 

But there was an answer coming to all those 
strainings and yearnings after God and His truth 
which had made those old Greek writings beautiful. 
There is a story that one night a ship's crew, 
passing near a lonely island in the iEgean Sea, 
sacred to the gods, heard a great wailing and crying 
aloud of spirit voices, exclaiming, " Great Pan is 
dead." 

Pan was the heathen god of nature, to whom 
sacred places were dedicated, and this strange 
crying was at the very night after a day when, far 
away in Judsea, the sun had been darkened at noon, 
and the rocks were rent, and One who was dying 
on a cross had said, "It is finished." For the 
victory over Satan and all his spirits was won by 
death. 

Some fifteen years later than that clay, as Paul, a 
Jew of Tarsus, in Asia Minor, with the right of 
Roman citizenship, and a Greek education, was 
spreading the knowledge of that victory over the 
East — while he slept at the new Troy built by 
Alexander, there stood by his bed, in a vision by 
night, a man of Macedon, saying, " Come over and 
help us." 



378 Young Folks' History of G-reece. 

He went, knowing that the call came from God, 
and the cities of Macedon gained quite new honors. 
Philippi, where he was first received, had a small 
number of Jews in it, to whom he spake by the 
river side, but many Greeks soon began to listen ; 
and then it was that the evil spirits, who spake 
aloud to men in heathen lands, first had to own 
the power of Christ, who had conquered. A slave 
girl, who had long been possessed by one of these 
demons, was forced at the sight of Paul and his 
companion Silas to cry aloud, " These men are the 
servants of the Most High God, which show unto 
us the way of salvation." She followed them 
about for some days doing this, until Paul, grieved 
in the spirit, bade the evil one, in Jesus' name, to 
leave her. At once the name of the Conqueror 
caused the demon to depart ; but the owner of the 
slave girl, enraged at the loss of her soothsaying 
powers, accused the Apostle and his friend to the 
magistrates, and, without examination, they were 
thrown into prison. At night, while they sang 
praise in the dungeon, an earthquake shook it ; the 
doors were open, the fetters loosed, and the jailer, 
thinking them fled, would have killed himself, but 
for Paul's call to him that all were safe. He heard 
the Word of life that night, and was baptized ; but 



The Gospel in Greece. 379 

St. Paul would not leave the prison, either then or 
at the permission of the magistrates, when they 
found they had exceeded their powers, but insisted 
that they should come themselves to fetch him out, 
thus marking his liberty as a Roman, so that others 
might fear to touch him. He had founded a church 
at Philippi, in which he always found great comfort 
and joy ; and Avhen he was forced to go on to Thes- 
salonica, he found many willing and eager hearers 
among the Greeks ; but the Jews, enraged at his 
teaching these, stirred up a mob, and not only 
forced him to leave that city, but hunted him 
wherever he tried to stop in Macedon, so that he 
was obliged to hurry into the next province, 
Achaia, and wait at Athens for the companions 
whom he had left to go on with his work at 
Philippi and Thessalonica. 

While at Athens, the multitude of altars and 
temples, and the devotion paid to them, stirred his 
spirit, so that he could not but speak out plainly, 
and point to the truth. It seemed a new philoso- 
phy to the talkers and inquirers, who had talked to 
shreds the old arguments of Plato and Epicurus, 
and longed for some fresh light or new interest; 
and he was invited to Areopagus to set forth his 
doctrine. There, in the face of the Parthenon and 



380 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

the Acropolis, with philosophers and students from 
all parts of the empire around, he made one of his 
greatest and noblest speeches — " Ye men of Athens, 
I perceive that in all things ye are greatly religious. 
For as I passed through your city, and beheld how 
ye worship, I found an altar with this inscription 
— c To the UMNOAYiX God.' Whom, therefore, 
ye ignorantly worship ; Him declare I unto you." 

Then, looking forth on the temples crowded on 
the rocks, he tried to open their minds to the truth 
that the God of all dwells in no temples made with 
hands, that all men alike are His children, and that, 
since living, breathing, thinking man has sprung 
from Him, it is lowering His greatness to represent 
Him by cold, dead, senseless stone, metal, or ivory. 
"He bore with the times of ignorance," said Paul; 
"but now He called on all men to turn to Him to 
prepare for the day when all should be judged, by 
the Man whom He had ordained for the purpose, 
as had been shown by His rising from the dead." 

The Greeks had listened to the proclamation of 
one great unseen God, higher than art could repre- 
sent ; but when Paul spoke of rising from the dead, 
they burst into mockery. They had believed in 
spirits living, but not in bodies rising again, and the 
philosophers would not listen. Very few converts 



The Gospel in Greece. 381 

were made in Athens, only Dionysius, and a woman 
named Damaris, and a few more ; and the city of 
learning long closed her ears against those who 
would have taught her what Socrates and Plato had 
been feeling after like men in the dark. 

At the merchant city of Corinth, Paul had 
greater success ; he stayed there nearly two years, 
and from thence sent letters to the Thessalonians, 
who were neglecting their daily duties, expecting 
that our Lord was about immediately to return. 
After Paul had left Corinth, he wrote to that city 
also, first to correct certain evils that had arisen in 
the Church there, and afterwards to encourage 
those who had repented, and promise another visit. 
This visit, as well as one to his Macedonian 
churches, was paid in his third journey ; and when 
he had been arrested at Jerusalem, and was in 
Rome awaiting his trial before the emperor, Nero, 
he wrote to his friends at Philippi what is called the 
Epistle of Joy, so bright were his hopes of his 
friends there. 

St. Andrew also labored in Greece, and was put 
to death in Achaia, by being fastened to a cross of 
olive-wood, shaped like an X, where he hung 
exhorting the people for three days before he died. 
When St. Paul was released, he and the great 



382 



Young Folks* History of Greece. 



evangelist St. John, and such of the apostles as still 
survived, set the Church in order, appointed bishops 
over their cities, and Dionysius of Athens became 
Bishop of Corinth, and St. Paul's pupil from 
Antioch, Titus, was Bishop of Crete, and received 
an epistle from Paul on the duties of his office. In 
process of time Christianity won its way, and the 
oracles became silent, as the demons which spoke 
in them fled from the Name of Jesus. 




CHAPTER XL. 

UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

FOR three hundred years Rome reigned over 
all the countries round the Mediterranean, 
with one emperor at her head, and the magistrates 
of his appointment to rule in all the provinces, 
while garrisons were placed to quell risings of the 
people, or to keep in order the wild tribes on any 
dangerous border. For a long course of years 
Greece was quiet, and had no need of such troops. 
The people of her cities were allowed to manage 
their own affairs enough to satisfy them and make 
them contented, though they had lost all but such 
freedom as they could have by being enrolled as cit- 
izens of Rome, and they were too near the heart 
of the empire to be in danger from barbarous 

neighbors, so that they did not often have troops 

383 



38-1 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

among them, except those passing through Corinth 
to the East. 

Towards the end of these three hundred years, 
however, Thrace and Thessalj began to be threat- 
ened by wild nations who came from the banks of 
the Danube, and robbed the rich villages and coun- 




THE FORUM AT ROME. 



tries to the south. The empire was, in truth, grow- 
ing weaker, and enemies began to press upon it ; 
and this made the emperor, Diocletian, decide 
that it was beyond the power of any one man to 
rule and defend it all, and he therefore divided it 
with his friend Maximian, whom he made Emperor 



Under the Roman Empire. 385 

of the East, while he remained Emperor of the 
West. The Western empire was the Latin-speaking 
half, and the Eastern the Greek-speaking half, of 
these lands, though both still called themselves 
Roman. 

The two halves were joined together again, about 
the year 300, under Constantine the Great, who was 
the first Christian emperor. He thought he should 
be more in the middle of his government if he 
moved his capital from Rome to the old Greek city 
of Byzantium, which he adorned with most splen- 
did buildings, and called after his own name Con- 
stantinople ; and this became the capital of the 
East, as Rome was of the West. Athens remained 
all this time the place of study for Christians as 
well as heathens, and people still talked philosophy 
and studied eloquence among the laurel and myrtle 
groves, and looked at the temples, which still stood 
there, though hardly anyone frequented them. One 
emperor, Julian, the cousin of Constantine, studied 
there as a youth, and became so fond of the old 
philosophy and learning, and so admired the noble 
ways of the times when men were seeking after 
truth, that he thought Greece and Rome would be 

great again if they turned back to these heathen 

25 



386 Young Folks' History of G-reeee. 

ways, not seeing that this was going back to the 
dark out of which those men had been struggling. 

Julian tried to bring back heathen customs, and 
to have the old gods worshiped again ; but he was 
killed in an expedition against the Persians, and 
soon after, his time the old idol-worship was quite 
forgotten. Every city had a Bishop and Clergy, 
and the Bishops of each division of the empire were 
under a great ruling Bishop, who was called a 
Patriarch. Greece was under the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople. The Greek churches were made as 
like the pattern of the temple at Jerusalem as they 
could be. The end which represented the Holy of 
Holies, and had the altar in it, was veiled, and en- 
closed within what were called the Royal Gates, 
and these were only opened at times of celebrating 
the Holy Communion. This end was raised on steps, 
and the Holy Scriptures and sermon were spoken 
to the people from the front of the Royal Gates. 
The pavement was of rich marble, and the ceiling, 
which was generally vaulted, was inlaid with 
colored stones, making pictures in what is called 
Mosaic, because thus the stones were set by Moses 
in the High Priest's vestment. The clergy wore 
robes like those of the priests, and generally had 
flowing hair and beards, though in front the hair 



Under the Roman Empire. 387 

was cut in a circlet, in memory of our Lord's crown 
of thorns. 

Now that eveiyone had become Christian, and 
bad or worldly people were not afraid to belong 
to the Church for fear of persecution, there 
was often sin and evil among them. Man) r who 
grieved at this shut themselves up from the world 
in the most lonely places they could find — little 
islands, deep woods, mountain tops, or rocks, and 
the like. When they lived alone they were called 
hermits, when there were many together they were 
called monks, and the women who thus lived were 
nuns. Many such monasteries were in Greece, es- 
pecially one upon Mount Athos — that peninsula 
that Xerxes tried to cut off — and most of these 
have continued even to our own time. 

The emperor Theodosius, who reigned at the end 
of this fourth century over both East and West, 
was a very good man, and during his reign the 
Greek lands were kept from the marauders. In 
his time, however, the Thessalonians brought a 
most dreadful punishment on themselves. For 
want of public business, or any real and noble in- 
terest, the people had come to care for nothing but 
games and races, and they loved these sports with 
a sort of passionate fury. There was a chariot- 



388 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

driver at Thessalonica who was a wicked man, but 
whose racing was so much admired that when, for 
some crime, Botheric, the governor, put him in 
prison and hindered his performance, the mob rose, 
when they missed him in the amphitheatre, and 
threw stones at the governor and his officers, so 
that several were killed, and Botheric among them. 
The news was taken to the emperor, and in great 
wrath he ordered that the Thessalonians should be 
punished. The order was given to a cruel, savage 
man, who hurried off at once, lest the emperor 
should relent and stop him. He invited the Thes- 
salonians to meet him in the amphitheatre, and 
when they were there, expecting to hear some mes- 
sage, he had all the doors closed, and sent in his 
soldiers, who killed them all, innocent as well as 
guilty, even strangers who had only just come to 
the place. 

Theodosius was much shocked to find how his 
passionate words had been obeyed, and the good 
Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose, made him wait as a 
penitent, cut off from the Holy Communion, while 
he was thus stained with blood, until after many- 
months his repentance could be accepted, and he 
could be forgiven. 

After Theodosius died, the Western half of the 



Under the Roman Empire. 389 

empire was overrun and conquered by tribes of 
German nations, but the Eastern part still remained, 
and emperor after emperor reigned at Constantino- 
ple, ruling over the Greek cities as before ; but 
there were savage tribes of the Slavonian race who 
settled in Thrace, and spread over Thessaly. They 
were called Bulgarians, and used to send marauders 
all over the country to the south, so that they were 
much dreaded by the Greeks, who had long for- 
gotten how to fight for themselves. 

But though the Eastern and Western empires 
were broken apart, the Church was one. The 
Greeks, indeed, found fault with the Romans for 
putting three words into the Creed of Nicea which 
had not been decided on by the consent of the 
whole Church in Council, and there was a question 
between the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of 
Constantinople as to which had the chief rule. At 
last their disputes in the eleventh century caused 
a schism, or ruling apart, and the Greek Church 
became separated from the Roman Church. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE FRANK CONQUEST. 
1201—1446. 

'nr^HERE is very little to tell about Greece for 
-*- hundreds of years. It was a part of the 
Eastern Empire, and was for the most part in a 
quiet state, except when robbers came against it. 
The Bulgarians came from the North, but after they 
had become Christian they were somewhat less 
dangerous. From the East and South came Sara- 
cens and Moors, who had been converted to the 
faith of the false Arabian prophet Mahommed ; and 
from the West came the Northmen, all the way 
from Norway and Denmark, to rob the very east 
end of the Mediterranean, so that beautiful old 
ornaments, evidently made in Greece, have been 
found in the northern homes that once belonged to 

these sea-kings. 

390 



The Frank Conquest. 391 

The Greeks had little spirit to fight, and the em- 
perors took some of these stout Northmen into their 
pay against the Bulgarians and Saracens, calling 
them the Varangian Guard. Another band, of 
northern blood, though they had been settled in 
Normandy for two generations, came, and' after 
driving out the Saracens from Sicily and Southern 
Italy, set up two little kingdoms there. Robert 
Guiscard, or the Wizard, the first and cleverest of 
these Norman kings, had a great wish to gain 
Greece also, and had many fights with the troops 
of the Emperor of the East, Alexis Comnenus. 
Their quarrels with him made the Greeks angry 
and terrified when all the bravest men of the West 
wanted to come through their lands on the Crusade, 
or Holy War, to deliver Jerusalem from the Sara- 
cens. Then, since the schism between the Churches, 
the Greeks and the Latins had learnt scarcely to 
think of one another as Christians at all, and cer- 
tainly they did not behave to one another like 
Christians, for the Greeks cunningly robbed, har- 
assed, and deceived the Latins, and the Latins 
were harsh, rude and violent with the Greeks. 

In the northern point of the Adriatic Sea lay the 
city of Venice, built upon a cluster of little islands. 
The people had taken refuge there when Italy was 



392 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

overrun by the barbarians. In course of time these 
Venetians had grown to be a mighty and powerful 
people, whose merchant ships traded all over the 
Mediterranean, and whose counselors were famed 
for wisdom. They had shaken off the power of the 
Greek emperor, and were governed by a senate and 
council, with a chosen nobleman at its head, who 
was called the Doge, or Duke. Just when the 
French, Germans, and Italians were setting off on 
the Fourth Crusade, in the year 1201, meaning to 
sail in Venetian ships, the young Alexius Angelus, 
son to the emperor Isaac Angelus, came to beg for 
help for his poor old father, who had been thrown 
into prison by his own brother, with his eyes put 
out. It was quite aside from the main work of the 
Crusade, but the Venetians had always had a quar- 
rel with the Greek emperors, and they prevailed to 
turn the army aside to attack Constantinople. 
With an immense pair of shears they cut in twain 
the great chains which shut in the harbor of the 
Golden Horn, and sailed safely in, led by their 
Doge, Dandolo, who, though eighty years old, and 
blind, was as keen on the battle as the youngest 
man there. 

The French scaled the walls, the usurper fled, 
and blind old Isaac was led out of his dungeon, and 



The Frank Conquest. 393 

dressed in his robes again ; his son was crowned 
with him, and they did everything to please the 
Crusaders. Chiefly they made the Patriarch of 
Constantinople consent to give up all the differ- 
ences with the Roman Catholic Church, and own 
the Pope as superior to him. This made the Greeks 
angry, and .they could not bear to see their young 
emperor so familiar with the French knights, whom 
they looked on as barbarians. One day he was 
seen with a Frenchman's cap on his head, and his 
own crown lying on the ground at his feet. In 
great anger the people of Constantinople rose, under 
a man named Alexius Ducas, called " Black-brows," 
murdered the two emperors, and set up this new 
one ; but he did not reign long, for the French and 
Venetians were close at hand. There was a second 
siege, and when the city was taken, they plundered 
it throughout, stripped it of all the wealth they 
could collect, and set up Baldwin, Count of Flan- 
ders, to be emperor, with a Latin Patriarch ; while 
the Venetians helped themselves to all the southern 
part of the empire, namely, the Peloponnesus and 
the Greek islands ; and a French nobleman named 
Walter de Brienne was created Duke of Athens, 
under the Flemish emperor. 

It was then that so many of the old Greek places 



394 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

took the names we now see them called by in the 
map, and which were mostly given by the Venetian 
seamen. They called the Peloponnesus the Morea, 
or Mulberry-leaf, because it was in that shape ; they 
called the island of Euboea, Negropont, or Black- 
bridge ; the iEgean Sea, the Archipelago, or Great 
Sea ; and the Euxine, the Black Sea, because it is 
so dangerous. The Greeks hated their new mas- 
ters very much, and would not conform to the 
Roman Catholic Church. A new Greek empire 
was set up in Asia Minor, at Mcea ; and after the 
Latin emperor Baldwin had been lost in a battle 
with the Bulgarians, and great troubles swept away 
his successors, the emperors returned to Constanti- 
nople, under Michael Palseologus, in 1261, and 
drove out all the Franks, as the Greeks called the 
Western people, chiefly French and Italians, who 
had come to settle in their cities. 

But the Venetians still held the cities in the 
greater part of the Morea, and some of the islands, 
and traded all over the East and West, though 
their Greek subjects were only kept under by main 
force, still held to their own Greek Church, and 
looked to the Roman Emperor of the East, as they 
called the Palseologus at Constantinople, as their 
head ; nor was it easy to overpower people who 



The Frank Conquest. 395 

had so many mountain fastnesses, nor to tame 
monks whose convents were nests on the top of 
rocks, some so steep that there was no way of en- 
tering them save being drawn up in a basket. 
Well was it for them that they had niched them- 
selves into such strongholds, for worse and worse 
days were coming upon Greece. The terrible na- 
tion of Turks were making their way out of the 
wild country north of Persia, and winning the old 
cities of Asia Minor, where they set up their Ma- 
hommedan dominion, and threatened more and 
more to overthrow the Greek empire altogether. 

The emperor, John Palseologus, was obliged to 
yield to Amurath, the- Turkish Sultan, all his lands 
except Constantinople, Thessalonica, and that part 
of the Morea which still clung to the empire, 
and the Turks set up their capital at Adrianople, 
whence they spread their conquests up to the very 
walls of Constantinople ; but the Greek mountain- 
eers, especially those of the mountain land of Epirus, 
now called Albania, had something of the old spirit 
among them, and fought hard. The Venetians 
used to take troops of them into their pay, since all 
Christians made common cause against the Turks ; 
and these soldiers, richly armed, with white Alba- 
nian kilts, the remnant of the old Greek tunic, were 



396 



Young Folks' History of Grreece. 



called Stradiots, from the old Greek word for a 
soldier, Stratiotes. The bravest of them all was 
George Castriotes, a young Albanian, who had 
been given as a hostage to the Mahommedans when 
nine years old. He had been kept a prisoner, and 
made to fight in the Turkish army, and was so 




MOUNT HELICON. 



brave there that the Turks called him Skanderbeg, 
or the Lord Alexander. However, when he thought 
of the horror of being a Mahommedan, and fighting 
against the Christian faith and his own country, he 
; fled into Albania, raised all the Greeks, killed all 



The Frank Conquest. 



397 



the Turks in the country, and kept it safe from all 
further attempts of the Sultan as long as he lived, 
although, at Varna, a great crusade of all the most 
adventurous spirits in Europe, to drive back the 
Turks, was wofully defeated in the year 1446. 




CHAPTER XLIL 

THE TURKISH CONQUEST. 

1453—1670. 

r*HE last Emperor of the East was the best and 
■*■ bravest who had reigned for many years. 
Constantine Palseologus did his best against the 
Turks, but Mahommed II., one of the greatest of 
the Ottoman race, was Sultan, and vowed that 
Constantinople should be either his throne or his 
tomb. 

When the besieged Christians heard the Turks 

outside their walls chanting their prayers, they 

knew that the city would be assaulted the next day, 

and late at night Constantine called his friends 

together, and said, " Though my heart is full, I can 

speak to you no longer. There is the crown which 

I hold from God. I place it in your hands; I 

entrust it to you. I fight to deserve it still, or to 

398 



o 

o 



> 

H 

2 

O 

r 




The Turkish Conquest. 401 

die in defending it." They wept and wailed so 
that he had to wait to be heard again, and then he 
said, " Comrades, this is our fairest day;" after 
which they all went to the Cathedral of St. Sophia, 
and received the Holy Communion together. There 
was a crowd around as he came out, and he stood be- 
fore them, begging them to pardon him for not having 
been able to make them happier. They answered 
with sobs and tears, and then he mounted his horse 
and rode round the defences. 

The Turks began the attack in the early morning, 
and the fight raged all clay; but they were the 
most numerous, and kept thronging into the breach, 
so that, though Constantine fought like a lion at 
bay, he could not save the place, and the last time 
his voice was heard it was crying out, " Is there no 
Christian who will cut off my head?" The Turks 
pressed in on all sides, cut down the Christians, 
won street after street, house after house ; and 
when at last Mahommed rode up to the palace 
where Roman emperors had reigned for 1100 years, 
he was so much struck with the desolation that he 
repeated a verse of Persian poetry — 

" The spider liatli woven her web in the palace of kings, 

The owl hath sung her watch-song in the towers of Afra- 

siab." 

26 



402 Young Folks'" History of Greece. 

Search was made for the body of Constantine, and 
it was found under a heap of slain, sword in hand, 
and so much disfigured that it was only known by 
the golden eagles worked on his buskins. The 
whole city fell under the Turks, and the nobles and 
princes in the mountains of the Morea likewise 
owned Mahommed as their sovereign. Only 
Albana held out as long as the brave Skanderbeg 
lived to guard it ; but at last, in 1466, he fell ill of 
a fever, and finding that he should not live, he 
called his friends and took leave of them, talking 
over the toils they had shared. In the midst there 
was an alarm that the Turks were making an in- 
road, and the smoke of the burning villages could 
be seen. George called for his armor, and tried to 
rise, but he was too weak, so he bade his friends 
hasten to the defence, saying he should soon be able 
to follow. When the Turks saw his banner, they 
thought he must be there, and fled, losing many 
men in the narrow mountain roads ; but the Greeks 
had only just brought back the news of their 
success, when their great leader died. His horse 
loved him so much that it would not allow itself to 
be touched by any other person, became wild and 
fierce, and died in a few weeks' time, The Al- 
banians could not hold out long without their 



The Turkish Conquest. 403 

gallant chief; and when the Turks took Alyssio, 
the body of Castriotes was taken from its grave, 
and the bones were divided among his enemies, who 
wore them as charms in cases of gold and silver, 
fancying they would thus gain a share of his 
bravery. 

The Turkish empire thus included all Greece on 
the mainland, but the Greeks were never really 
subdued. On all the steep hills were castles or 
convents, which the Turks were unable to take ; 
and though there were Turkish Beys and Pashas, 
with soldiers placed in the towns to overawe the 
people, and squeeze out a tribute, and a great deal 
more besides, from the Greek tradesmen and 
farmers, the main body of the people still remem- 
bered they were Greeks and Christians. Each 
village had its own church and priest, each diocese 
its bishop, all subject to the Patriarchs of Constan- 
tinople ; and the Sultans, knowing what power 
these had over the minds of the people, kept them 
always closely watched, often imprisoned them, 
and sometimes put them to death. The islands for 
the most part were still under Venice, and some of 
the braver-spirited young men became Stradiots in 
the Venetian service ; but too many only went off 
into the mountains, and became robbers and out- 



404 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

laws there, while those who lived a peaceable life 
gave way under their miseries to the two greatest 
faults there had always been in the Greek nature, 
namely, cheating and lying. They were so sharp 
and clever that the dull Turks were forced to 
employ them, so that they grew rich fast ; and then, 
as soon as the Pasha suspected them of having 
wealth, however poor they seemed to be, he would 
seize them, rob them, or kill them to get their 
money ; and, what was worse, their daughters were 
taken away to be slaves or wives to the Mahomme- 
dans. The clergy could get little teaching, and 
grew as rude and ignorant as their flocks; for 
though the writings of the great teachers of the 
early Church were laid up in the libraries in the 
convents, nobody ever touched them. But just as, 
after the Macedonian conquest of old Greece, the 
language spread all over the East; so, after the 
Turkish conquest of Constantinople, Greek became 
much better known in Europe, for many learned 
men of the schools of Constantinople took refuge 
in Italy, bringing their books with them; the 
scholars eagerly learned Greek, and the works of 
Homer and of the great old Greek tragedians 
became more and more known, and were made 
part of a learned education. The Greeks at home 



The Turkish Conquest. 405 

still spoke the old tongue, though it had become as 
much altered from that of Athens and Sparta as 
Italian is from Latin. 

The most prosperous time of all the Turkish 
power was under Solyman the Magnificent, who 
spread his empire from the borders of Hungary to 
those of Persia, and held in truth nearly the same 
empire as Alexander the Great. He conquered the 
island of Rhodes, on the Christmas-day of 1522, 
from the Knights of St. John, who were Frankish 
monks sworn to fight against the Mahommedans. 
Cyprus belonged to the Venetians, and in 1571 a 
Jew, who had renounced his faith, persuaded Sul- 
tan Selim to have it attacked, that he might gain 
his favorite Cyprus wine for the pressing, instead 
of buying it. The Venetian stores of gunpowder 
had been blown up by an accident, and they could 
not send help in time to the unfortunate governor, 
who was made prisoner, and treated with most 
savage cruelty. However, fifty years later, in 1571, 
the powers of Europe joined together under Don 
John of Austria, the brother of the king of Spain, 
and beat the Turks in a great sea-fight at Lepanto, 
breaking their strength for many years after ; but 
the king, Philip II. (husband of Mary I. of England), 



406 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

was jealous of his brother, and called him home, 
and after that the Venetians were obliged to make 
peace, and give up Cyprus. The misfortune was 
that the Greeks and Latins hated each other so 
much that they never would make common cause 
heartily against the Turks, and the Greeks did not 




like to be under Venetian protection ; but Venice 
kept Crete, or Candia, as it was now called, till 
1670, when the Turks took it, after a long and 
terrible siege, lasting more than two years, during 
which the bravest and most dashing gentlemen of 



The Turkish Conquest. 



407 



France made a wild expedition to help the Christian 
cause. But all was in vain ; Candia fell, and most 
of the little isles in the Archipelago came one by 
one under the cruel power of the Turks. 




CHAPTER XLIIL 

THE VENETIAN CONQUEST AND LOSS. 

1684—1796. 

AGAIN there was a time of deliverance for 
Greece. The Turks had had a great defeat 
before Vienna, and in their weak state the Vene- 
tians made another attack on them, and appointed 
Francis Morosini commander of the fleet and army. 
He took the little Ionian isle of Sta Maura, and 
two Albanian towns ; and many brave young men, 
who had read of the glories of ancient Greece in 
the course of their studies, came from all parts of 
Europe to fight for her. The governor, or Seraskin, 
was obliged to retreat, and the Mainots, as the 
Greeks of the Morea were called, rose and joined 
him. Corinth, which was as valuable as ever as 
the door of the peninsula, was taken, and nothing 

in the Morea remained Turkish but the city of 

408 



The Venetian Conquest and Loss. 409 

Malvasia. Morosini threw his men into Lepanto, 
Patras, and pushed on to Athens ; but there they 
had six days' fighting, during which more harm was 
done to the beautiful old buildings and sculptures 
than had befallen them in nearly two thousand 
years of decay. The Turks had shut themselves 
up in the Acropolis, and made a powder magazine 
of the Parthenon. A shell from Morosini' s bat- 
teries fell into it, and blew up the roof, which had 
remained perfect all these years, and much more 
damage was done; but the city was won at last, 
and the Venetians were so much delighted that 
they chose Morosini Doge, and bestowed on him 
the surname of Peloponesiacus in honor of his vic- 
tory. He sent home a great many precious spoils, 
in the way of old sculptures, to Venice — in es- 
pecial two enormous marble lions which used to 
guard the gate of the Piraeus, but which now stand 
on either side of the Arsenal at Venice. 

Then he laid siege to Negropont, the chief city 
of the old isle of Euboea ; but the plague broke out 
in his camp, and weakened his troops so much that 
they were defeated and forced to give up the at- 
tempt. Illness too, hindered him from taking 
Malvasia ; his health was broken, and he died soon 
after his return to Venice. Four great and bloody 



410 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

sea-fights took place during the next few years, 
and in one the Turks had the victory, in the others 
it was doubtful ; but when peace was made, in the 
year 1699, the Morea was yielded to the Venetians, 
and they put a line of forts across the Isthmus to 
secure it, as in old times. But the Venetian Re- 
public had lost a great deal of strength and spirit, 
and when, in a few years later, the Sultan began to 
prepare to take back what he had lost, the Doge 
and Senate paid little attention to his doings ; so 
that, when 100,000 Turks, with the Grand Vizier, 
sailed against the Morea, besides a fleet of 100 
ships, the Venetian commander there had only 
8000 men and 19 ships. The Venetians were hope- 
less, and yielded Corinth after only four days' siege ; 
and though safety had been promised to the inhab- 
itants, they were cruelly massacred, and the same 
happened in place after place till the whole Morea 
was conquered, and the Venetians took ship and 
left the unhappy Greeks to their fate, which was 
worse than ever, since they were now treated as 
rebels. 

Several of the Ionian islands on the west side of 
Greece w r ere seized by the Turks ; but Corfu, the 
old Corcyra, held out most bravely, the priests, 
women, and all fighting most desperately as the 



The Venetian Conquest and Loss. 411 

Turks stormed the walls of their city ; stones, iron 
crosses, everything that came to hand, were hurled 
down on the heads of the enemy ; but the ramparts 
had been won, and thirty standards planted on the 
walls, when the Saxon general Schulenberg, who 
was commanding the Venetians, sallied out with 
800 men, and charged the Turks in their rear, so 
that those on the walls hurried back to defend their 
camp. At night a great storm swept away the 
tents, and in the morning a Spanish fleet came to 
the aid of the island. The Turks were so much 
disheartened that they embarked as quietly as pos- 
sible in the night ; and when the besieged garrison 
looked forth in the morning, in surprise at every- 
thing being so still and quiet, they found the whole 
place deserted — stores of powder and food, cannon, 
wounded men and all. Corfu has thus never fallen 
under Turkish power, for in the next year, 1717, a 
a peace was made, in which, though Venice gave 
up all claim to the Morea, she kept the seven 
Ionian islands, and they continued under her power 
as long as she remained a free and independent 
city — that is to say, till 1796, when she was con- 
quered by the French, and given for a time to 
Austria. 



412 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

The state of poor Greece was dreadful, The 
nobles lived in fortresses upon the rocks, and the 
monks in their fastnesses ; but the villages, towns, 
and coasts were worse off than ever, for the Turks 
treated them as rebels, and savagely oppressed and 
misused them. Nor were they united among them- 
selves, for the families who dwelt in the hills were 
often at deadly feud with each other ; the men shot 
each other down if they met ; and it ended in whole 
families of men living entirely within their castle 
walls, and never going out except armed to the 
teeth on purpose to fight, while all the business of 
life was carried on by the women, whom no one 
on either side attempted to hurt. The beautiful 
buildings in the cities were going to decay faster 
than ever, in especial the Parthenon. When it had 
lost its roof it was of no further use as a storehouse, 
so it was only looked on as a mine of white marble, 
and was broken down on all sides. The English 
Earl of Elgin obtained leave from the Turkish gov- 
ernment to carry away those carvings from it which 
are now in the British Museum, and only one row 
of beautiful pillars from the portico of the Temple 
has been left standing. 

As the Russians had been converted to Chris- 



The Venetian Conquest and Loss. 413 

tianity by the clergy of Constantinople, and be- 
longed to the same Church, the Greeks naturally 
looked most there for help ; but they were not well 
treated by the great empire, which seemed to think 
the chief use of them was to harass the Turks, and 
keep them from attacking Russia. Thus, in 1770, 
the Russians sent 2000 men to encourage a rising 
of the Mainots in the Morea, but not enough to 
help them to make a real resistance ; and the 
Greeks, when they had a little advantage, were al- 
ways so horridly cruel in their revenge on their 
Turkish prisoners as to disgrace the Christian 
name, and to provoke a return. In 1790, again, 
the Suliot Greeks of Albania sent to invite Con- 
stantine, the brother of the Czar of Russia, to be 
king of Greece, and arranged a rising, but only 
misery came of it. The Russians only sent a little 
money, encouraged them to rise, and then left them 
to their fate. The Turkish chief, Ali Pasha, who 
in his little city of Yanina had almost become a 
king independent of the Sultan, hunted them 
down ; and the Suliots, taking refuge among the 
rocks, fought to the death, and killed far more than 
their own number. In one case the Turks sur- 
prised a wedding-party, which retreated to a rock 



414 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

with a precipice behind. Here the women waited 
and watched till all the men had been slain, and 
then let themselves be driven over the precipice 
rather than be taken by the Turks. 




CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE WAE OF INDEPENDENCE. 
1815. 

IN all their troubles the Greeks never quite lost 
heart. The merchants who had thriven in 
trade sent their sons to be educated in France, 
Russia, and Germany, and these learned to think 
much of the great old deeds of their forefathers, and 
they formed a secret society among themselves, 
called the Hetaira, which in time the princes and 
nobles of the Peloponnesus joined ; so that they felt 
that if they only were so united and resolute as to 
make some Christian power think it worth while to 
take up their cause in earnest, they really might 
shake off the Turkish yoke. 

In 1820, Ali Pasha, the governor of Albania, re- 
belled, and shut himself up in the town of Yanina, 

stirring up the Greeks to begin fighting on their 
415 



416 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

own account, so as to prevent the Sultan from using 
all his power to crush him. So the Greeks began, 
under Prince Ipsilanti, w 7 ho had served in the 
Russian army, to march into the provinces on the 
Danube ; but they were not helped by the Russians, 
and were defeated by the Turks. Ipsilanti fled into 
Austria; but another leader, called George the 
Olympian, lived a wild, outlaw life for some years 
longer, but as he had no rank the Greeks were too 
proud to join him. At last he shut himself up in 
the old convent of Secka, and held it out against 
the Turks for thirty-six hours, until, finding that 
he could defend it no longer, he put a match to the 
powder, and blew himself and his men up in it 
rather than surrender. 

But the next year there was another rising all 
over Greece. The peasants of Attica drove the 
Turkish garrison out of all Athens but the Acropo- 
lis; the Suliots rose again, with secret encourage- 
ment from Ali Pasha, and hope seemed coming 
back. But when Omar Pasha had been sent from 
Constantinople with 4000 Turkish troops, he found 
it only too easy to rout 700 Greeks at Thermopylae, 
and, advancing into Attica, he drove back the 
peasants, and relieved the Turkish garrison in the 
Acropolis, which had been besieged for eighty-three 



The War of Independence. 417 

days ; but no sooner had he left the place than the 
brave peasants returned to the siege. 

The worst of the Greeks was that they were very 
cruel and treacherous, and had very little notion of 
truth or honor, for people who have been long 
ground down are apt to learn the vices of slaves ; 
and when the Turks slaughtered the men, burnt 
the villages, and carried off the women, they were 
readjr to return their savage deeds with the like 
ferocity, and often with more cunning than the 
Turks could show; and this made the European 
nations slow of helping them. In this year, 1821, 
a Greek captain plotted to set fire to the arsenal at 
Constantinople, murder the Sultan in the confusion, 
and begin a great revolt of all the Greeks living at 
Constantinople- The plot was found out, and 
terribly visited, for thousands of Christian families, 
who had never even heard of it, were slain in their 
houses, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, an 
aged man, whom everyone loved, and respected, 
was also put to death. Not only were the Chris- 
tians massacred at Constantinople, but in most of 
the other large cities of Turkey, and only in a few 
were the people able to escape on board the Greek 
merchant ships. These ships carried ten or twelve 

guns, were small, swift, and well managed, and 

27 



418 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

little fire-ships were sometimes sent by them into 
the Turkish fleet, which did a great deal of dam- 
age. 

The slaughter of so many Christians had only 
enraged instead of terrifying the others ; and a 
Greek prince named Mavrocordato brought an army 
together, which took several cities, but unhappily 
was as cruel as the Turks themselves in their treat- 
ment of the conquered. However, they now held 
Argos, met there, and made Mavrocordato their 
President in 1822. AH Pasha of Yanina was re- 
duced and shot by the Turks that same year ; and 
Omar Pasha, who had been sent against him, had a 
great deal of desperate fighting with the Suliots and 
other Albanian Greeks, but at last he wag driven 
back through the mountains with terrible loss. 

Another horrid deed of the Turks did much to 
turn men's minds against them. There were about 
120,000 Christians in the island of Scio, who had 
taken no part in the war, and only prayed to be let 
alone ; but two Greek captains chose to make an 
attack on the Turkish garrison, and thus provoked 
the vengeance of the Turks, who burst in full force 
on the unhappy island, killed every creature they 
found in the capital, and ravaged it everywhere. 
Forty thousand were carried off as slaves, and 



The War of Independence. 419 

almost all the rest killed ; and when these horrors 
were over, only 1800 were left in the place. 

The cruelty of the Turks and the constancy of 
the Greeks began to make all Europe take an 
interest in the war. People began to think them a 
race of heroes like those of old, and parties of 
young men, calling themselves Philhellenes, or 
lovers of Greece, came to fight in their cause. The 
chief of these was the English poet, Lord Byron ; 
but he, as well as most of the others, found it was 
much easier to admire the Greeks when at a 
distance, for a war like this almost always makes 
men little better than treacherous savage robbers in 
their ways ; and they were all so jealous of one 
another that there was no obedience to any kind 
of government, nor any discipline in their armies. 
Byron soon said he was a fool to have come to 
Greece, and before he could do anything he died 
at Missolonghi, in the year 1824. But though the 
Greeks fought in strange ways of their own, they 
at least won respect and interest by their untam- 
ableness, and though Missolonghi was taken, it was 
only after a most glorious resistance. When the 
defenders could hold out no longer, they resolved 
to cut their way through the Turks. One division 
of them were deceived by a false alarm, and 



420 Young Folks 1 History of Grreece. 

returned to the town, where, when the enemy 
entered the powder magazine, they set fire to it, 
and blew themselves up, together with the Turks ; 
the others escaped. 

Athens was taken again by the Turks, all but 
the Acropolis; but the nations of Europe had 
begun to believe in the Greeks enough to advance 
them a large sum of money, which was called the 
Greek Loan ; and the English admiral, Lord Coch- 
rane, and an English soldier, General Church, did 
them much good by making up the quarrels among 
their own princes, for actually, in the midst of this 
desperate war with the Turks, there were seven 
little civil wars going on among different tribes of 
Greeks themselves. General Church collected them 
all, and fought a great battle in the plain of Athens 
with the Turkish commander, Ibrahim Pasha, but 
was beaten again; the Acropolis was taken, and 
nothing remained to the Greek patriots but the 
citadel of Corinth and Nauplise. 

However, France, Russia, and England had now 
resolved to interfere on behalf of the Greeks, and 
when the Sultan refused to attend to them, a fleet, 
consisting of ships belonging to the three nations, 
was sent into the Mediterranean. They meant to 
treat with the Turks, but the Turks and Greeks 



The War of Independence, 421 

thought they meant to fight, and in the bay of Nav- 
arino a battle began, which ended in the utter de- 
struction of the Turkish fleet. Out of 120 ships, 
only 20 or 30 were left, and 6000 men were slain. 
This was on the 20th of October, 1827, and the 
terrible loss convinced Ibrahim Pasha that no 
further attempt to keep the Morea was of any use, 
so he sailed away to Egypt, of which his father was 
then Viceroy for the Sultan, but which he and his 
son have since made into a separate kingdom. It 
was in October, 1828, that the Peloponnesus thus 
shook off the Turkish yoke. 

It was thought best that a French army should 
be sent to hold the chief fortresses in the Morea, 
because the Greeks quarreled so among themselves. 
In the meantime General Church went on driving 
the Turks back into the northern parts of Greece, 
and Count Capo dTstria was chosen President, but 
he did not manage well, and gave the command of 
Western Greece to his own dull brother, taking it 
away from General Church. It seemed as if the 
Greeks would not know how to use their freedom 
now they had gained it, for the Council and the 
President were always quarreling, and being jealous 
of each other ; and there was falsehood, robbery, 



422 Young Folks' History of Grreece. 

treachery, and assassination everywhere. And yet 
everyone hoped that the race that had stood so 
bravely all these years would improve now it was 
free. 




CHAPTER XLV. 

THE KINGDOM OF GREECE. 
1822—1875. 

THE European powers who had taken the little 
nation of Greeks in charge, finding that, as 
a republic with a president, they did nothing but 
dispute and fight, insisted that the country should 
have a king, and should govern by the help of a 
parliament. 

But the difficulty was that nobody had any claim 
to be king, and the Greeks were all so jealous of 
each other that there was no chance of their sub- 
mitting to one of themselves. The only royal 
family belonging to their branch of the Church 
were the Russians; and France, England, Austria, 
and all the rest were afraid of letting the great 
Russian power get such a hold on the Mediterra- 
nean Sea as would come of Greece being held by 

one of the brothers or sons of the Czar, 
423 



424 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

The first choice was very wise, for it w r as of one 
of the fittest men in Europe, Prince Leopold of 
Saxe Coburg ; and he accepted their offer at first, 
but when he had had time to hear more in letters 
from Count Capo d'Istrias, and found what a dread- 
ful state the country was in, and how little notion 
the people had of truth, honor, or obedience, he 
thought he should be able to do nothing with them, 
and refused to come to Greece. In the meantime 
the Greeks went on worse than ever. Capo d'Is- 
trias was murdered -by the son and brother of a 
chief whom he had imprisoned ; and two bodies of 
men met, each calling itself a National Assembly 
— one at Argos, the other at Megara — - and there 
was a regular civil war, during which the poor 
peasants had to hide in the woods and caves. 

At last, in 1832, the second son of the king of 
Bavaria, Otho, a lad of seventeen, was chosen king 
by a conference in London which was settling the 
affairs of Greece. He was sent with a council to 
rule for him till he should be of age, and with a 
guard of Bavarian soldiers, while the French troops 
were sent home again; but the Ionian islands re- 
mained under the British protection, and had an 
English Lord High Commissioner, and garrisons of 
English troops, 



The Kingdom of Greece. 425 

Otho had been chosen so young that there might 
be the better chance of his becoming one with his 
subjects, but he turned out very dull and heavy, 
and caused discontent, because he gave all the 
offices he could dispose of to his German friends 
rather than to Greeks, which perhaps w^as the less 
wonderful that it was very hard to find a Greek 
who could be trusted. At last, in 1843, the people 
rose upon him, forced him to send away all his 
Bavarians, and to have Greek ministers to manage 
the government, who should be removed at the 
will of the people. 

His capital was at Athens, and as everyone 
wished to see the places which had been made 
glorious by the great men of old Greece, there was 
such a resort of travelers thither as soon to make 
the town flourish ; but the Government was so 
weak, and the whole people so used to a wild, out- 
law life, that the country still swarms everywhere 
with robbers, whom the peasants shelter and be- 
friend in spite of their many horrid crimes. 

When the English and French nations, in the 
year 1853, took up the cause of Turkey against Rus- 
sia, the Greeks much longed to have fought against 
their old enemies ; but the two allied nations sent 
a strong guard to Athens, and kept them down. 



426 Young Folks' History of Greece. 

Otho had no children, and time did not draw him 
and his people nearer together ; and after a reign 
of about thirty years, it was plain that the experi- 
ment had not succeeded. He resigned, and went 
home to end his days in Bavaria. 

The Greek crown was offered to several more 
princes, wdio refused it, until George, the second 
son of the king of Denmark, accepted it in the 
year 1868. At the same time the Ionian islands 
were made over by the English Government to the 
crown of Greece, and the British troops withdrawn. 
One of the first things that happened in King 
George's time was the murder of three English 
gentlemen — Mr. Herbert, Mr. Lloyd, and Mr. 
Vyner — who had gone with a party to see the 
plain of Marathon. A gang of robbers came and 
seized upon them and carried them off to the hills, 
demanding a ransom. Lady Muncaster, who was 
of the party, was allowed to return to Athens 
with her husband, the robbers intending that the 
ransom should be collected ; but troops were sent 
out to rescue the prisoners, and in rage and disap- 
pointment the robbers shot them all three. The 
robbers were captured and put to death, and the 
young king was bitterly grieved at not having been 
able to prevent these horrors. 



The Kingdom of Gf-reeee. 427 

Schools are doing what they can, and the Greeks 
are very quick-witted, and learn easily. They are 
excellent sailors, clever merchants, and ready lin- 
guists, and get on and prosper very fast ; but till 
they learn truth, honesty, and mercy, and can clear 
their country of robbers, it does not seem as if any- 
thing could go really well with their kingdom, or 
as if it could make itself be respected. Yet we 
must recollect that the old Eastern Empire, under 
which they were for many centuries, did not teach 
much uprightness or good faith ; and that since 
that time they have had four hundred years of 
desperate fighting for their homes and their creed 
with a cruel and oppressive enemy, and that 
they deserve honor for their constancy even to the 
death. Let us hope they will learn all other vir- 
tues in time. 



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